Squash growing experience

I mainly added two secondary macronutrients: calcium and sulfur, and two micronutrients: boron and molybdenum to my one acre. A total of 500 lbs ag lime, 280 lbs gypsum, 25 lbs borax and 1 lb sodium molybdate. I plan on ordering one more ton of lime this fall. It was based on my soil and weather conditions and history of harvests/mineral removal so it may not apply to others.

I started the garden in a grassy area presumably cleared from the upland oak/black walnut forest. Soil is acidic and low in most things. So after adding lots of organic matter, things were thriving in the first few years, growing food seemed easy. I mistakenly assumed fertility would stay high that way with regular addition and recycling of organic matter but the system started to get less and less effective.

I did some modeling and it fits if one or more trace elements are depleting faster than others. First I suspected boron, because most OM I got was grass based and monocots have low boron content (<10ppm in dry weight). Vegetables I grow are largely dicots that need 10x more boron (10-100ppm). Squash in particular, has a really high toxicity threshold (1000 ppm). So when I grew lots of squashes, they had been accumulating boron in the leaves. Those leaves decompose quickly at the end of the season, but my weather is too cold to grow dicot covercrops to recycle the boron but not cold enough to retain it in ground. Over time the ratio drops to a point it is limiting plant growth and can't be corrected from organic input alone.

Similarly, my soil has low molybdenum in the first place, being highly leached and acidic. Local trees all have very high tannin to help them retain and recycle Mo. BTW, Mo is the least abundant essential element (1 to a million to nitrogen), and the only micronutrient that availability is reduced when pH drops and the only one that can be mobilized to the seeds. So after lots of harvests and removing clippings, Mo became so low at one point clovers were gone and beans and brassicas looked sickly with poor quality seeds. Perennials including fruit trees started a slow death as well. The more nitrogen added, organic or not, just made things worse. I did a small quantitative rescue test and the Mo needed was equivalent to a 50# bag of alfalfa pellet (3ppm Mo DW) per 10 sq ft. Again, not feasible in large scale.

I guess for most people with decent soil, adding mature derived from legumes leaves or seeds would be sufficient. I am just having a too low base line to start with. I wish I had those minerals added to the soil before gardening but luckily it's never too late. After I amended the soil, legume, cool season broadleaf and deep-rooted weeds reappeared in my yard, earth worms returned and moles areated the ground. I then just followed the usual organic practices of chop and drop, composting, inoculating biochar with weed tea etc and things are back to normal.

To start, I've not read all the contributions to the thread.

I've put this warning up in other threads, but am placing it here as well for all enquiring minds to have another opportunity for enrichment.

When planting any squash, it is important to know what sub tribe each variety is. Pepo is very commonly the summer squash. But there are winter/pumpkin types in the family.  Pepo don't keep long. All pepo will readily cross with each other and saved seed will reflect that cross.

Maxima is the sub-tribe that grow the really big fruits. Dills Atlantic Giant is in this family.  All maxima will cross pollinate with other maxima, and saved seed will reflect the cross.

Moschata is the sub-tribe that the longest keepers come from. I find them sweetest. Butternut are in this group. Moschata will cross, and the saved seed will reflect that.

There is another sub-tribe that I can't remember at the moment.  

Only distance,  and alot of it (often 100 feet or greater, up to a mile), will help prevent this crossing. Or only planting 1 of any sub-tribe. If I'm growing zucchini (green or yellow), I do not plant any pepo winter squash. I prefer the flavor and keeping qualities of the moschata, and currently have 1 fruit left from last October's harvest. I also like several in the maxima group, and I think the "cheese" are from this bunch.

I would add a link to Pearl's discussion with pictures of good eating winter squash,  but I'm doing this from my old cell phone that has no further updates or support! Maybe after posting I will figure that out.

When I lived in Southern California,  like zone 10 or higher, the squash only produced until short days arrived. They are annuals, and require replanting next year, or more plants this year for greater harvests. But then you need places and methods for keeping, whether it is canning, freezing, drying, or whole.

Here in West Virginia I've been keeping mine in the coldest part of the coldest room, checking and turning them monthly. And I'm down to my last, growing none this year. In favor of additional tomatoes and peppers which we eat more of.

I got 7 squashes maturing in this 4x6 area. Sweet potato vines are being trained to go up the trellis and fall veggie seedlings are sprouting under the cover. It's been scorchingly hot with less than 1" of rain in August and the heat wave will continue for another 2 weeks. Planting multiple vines and harvesting 1 fruit each works well when I have a short favorable growing window.

Deedee Dezso wrote:Only distance,  and alot of it (often 100 feet or greater, up to a mile), will help prevent this crossing. Or only planting 1 of any sub-tribe. If I'm growing zucchini (green or yellow), I do not plant any pepo winter squash.

I'm growing on an allotment garden site with up to 40 other people growing squash.  These will mostly be courgettes (zucchini) or pumpkins.

The whole site is only about, I guess 200 yards long.  So getting uncrossed varieties from which to save seed sounds like low probability for me unfortunately.

Ac Baker wrote:

Deedee Dezso wrote:Only distance,  and alot of it (often 100 feet or greater, up to a mile), will help prevent this crossing. Or only planting 1 of any sub-tribe. If I'm growing zucchini (green or yellow), I do not plant any pepo winter squash.

I'm growing on an allotment garden site with up to 40 other people growing squash.  These will mostly be courgettes (zucchini) or pumpkins.

The whole site is only about, I guess 200 yards long.  So getting uncrossed varieties from which to save seed sounds like low probability for me unfortunately.

Ac- there is another way but it seems unworthy of earlier mention. Cage and cover the plants/bed with a microfine mesh that light and water can get through but excludes the pollinators like bees, flies, butterflies. You will have to manually pollinate for fruit, but it can be done.

I had a good and bad year with squash this year. I had two plots, one strictly organic and one not. The strictly organic plot gave me 3 zucchinis and a few pumpkins. All the other plants were killed off by vine borers and lots of squash bugs. I tried growing radishes and marigolds all around the plants, having read that it can disguise the squash plants and help keep vine borers away. It didn't help enough.

My other garden produced what is shown below. Kabocha, Red Kuri, and Buttercup. All Maxima.
The Red Kuri was a disappointment. They grew like crazy and produced lots of large, bright red fruits, which mostly got destroyed by bugs and then rotted in the field. I managed to harvest a few of the smaller ones. Will not try these again.
The Kabocha and Buttercup did well and made lots of fruit. The pics show a selection.
There are two, the two largest fruits with slight orange color. I have no idea what those are or where they came from. I can only guess that the seeds had been crossed up with some other variety before they got packaged, sold and shipped to me. If they taste good I'll plant some of those seeds next year.

I'd like to learn how I can grow organic squash but I am coming to think it isn't possible with the Maxima varieties I have.

Squash is always included in my garden. I'm extremely lucky my growing conditions make it very easy to do.
This year my food forest want-a-be was covered with volunteer pumpkin and Squash. There are soooo many pumpkins. I think last year I planted sugar pie pumpkins, so they are all medium to small size. Unfortunately they grew so early they aren't lasting. I have tried keeping them in several spots, and they all go bad. Plan B I'm going to start cooking them and freezing it. I'm also giving some to the chickens.
In addition to the pumpkin A squash also came up. I think it's a cross of golden egg squash and something else? It looks similar, but not the same. It was very tasty, and was good eating even if it was large. I wanted to save seeds, but didn't manage it. One day it was pumping out more squash than we could eat, then suddenly it died. It could have been heat, maybe we forgot to water, maybe a gopher ( I don't plant in ground anymore because of the gophers, so I was happily surprised things grew and produced) Anyway we suddenly stopped getting that squash.
Not long after We started getting patty pan squash. Also a volunteer. It's slower, but producing good squash, for almost no effort.