Creating a Vining Pepo Squash Landrace that is Vigorous, Productive, and Bug and Disease Resistant

Most Pepo squash sold today seems to be the bush type, and the varieties that I've grown seem to make a few squash and then die.

This thread will document my journey to create a landrace vining Pepo squash that will be marvelously vigorous, wonderfully productive, mouth wateringly delicious, and gloriously pest and disease resistant.

I'd love hear and see photos of your Pepo squash too!

As of May 7th, the squash has sprouted.

These squash are in my main garden area, which was recently invaded by squirrels, so that's what all the twigs are for, to keep the squirrels from digging up and eating the seeds. They came for the corn, but found they liked the squash and cucumbers too. The twigs will naturally break down and enrich the soil.

I also have some squash growing in the food forest and will include some photos of those too as they get bigger.

Following. I am going to try my hand at a moschata landrace this summer. Good luck. Keep us updated.

Thanks Travis, you too!

Out of all of the squash species, Pepo squash seem to be the least adapted to our area, which surprised me. I thought it would have been Maxima, but a lot of the Maxima varieties have thrived while very few of the Pepo squash have done great. However the ones that are doing good, are doing well, and I'm interested to see how the offspring do that will have some additional genetics from the other varieties that didn't produce squash but probably pollinated the other squash.

Most of them are short and green that turn yellow and sometimes orange when ripe. One off the squash though is a good sized pumpkin shape.

Next year I'm probably going to cross some of these vining ones with my most vigorous and healthy bush types for some added diversity and disease resistance for the vining ones. It should be interesting how the offspring turn out.