Squash varieties

[Ian_5]

Hi,

just wondering if anyone has any experience with these varieties:

- blue ballet
- sugar squash

i decided to give them a go out of interest having grown Sweet Dumpling and butternut squash last year (the latter with limited success - toying with getting some cobnut seeds this year, as a last ditch attempt with the butternut type!).

Also, has anyone grown Sweet Dumpling up a trellis; i'd like to give this a go and after some inspiritation for suitable materials/design etc - they seemed to do this on GW last year but missed the episode which went into detail.

thanks for any thoughts

ian

[smilingshoe]

Hi Ian

I haven't tried either of those 2 but last year I grew quite a lot of squashes

Butternut (which were a dismal failure), Blue Hubbard, Marina da Choggia, Jumbo Pink banana, Jack o lanterns, turks turbans, uri kuris, table queen acorns and crown prince. The uri kuris were grown up trellises and I got quite a few

I got a really crop apart from the butternuts. In fact I've still got about 4 left from the haul. The blue hubbards were spectacular in size as were the jumbo pink bananas. By far the best storing and tasting of them all were the crown princes. This year I'll be growing 8 crown prince plants and one each of another couple of new varieties I haven't tried.

I love growing squashes it's so exciting seeing them grow, have fun with them

[realfood]

I have grown blue ballet, nice but very little useable flesh. Several are described as sugar Squash, so not sure which one you are talking about.
This page has a lot of information about suitable varieties to grow in the North. winter_squash

[Ian_5]

Hi Smilingshoe, quite a selection there! any chance you have a photo of the trellis set up you had? also how much space do you allocate to your crown prince plants? i've got quite a bit of room but get greedy and tend to over crowd!

Realfood, thanks for that... useful info.

the sugar squash seeds can be seen at the link below, but not much more info there, just a photo:

SQUASH Small Sugar ORGANIC SEED Sweet Excellent storage | eBay

cheers

[smilingshoe]

Hi Ian
Below are a few photos which might be helpful, the first one is the majority of the harvest I got ( not all the uri kuris are there), the second shows a trellis in the foreground which I grew the uri kuris up. I did a lot of cross bracing on the tripods as the fruit are quite heavy. I grew 3 plants through the trellis. It's like a 4 sided pyramid of canes with 5 cross sections for support, it worked really well.
The last photo is the structure I put into the allotment once I'd cleared it this time last year. The blue bed at the very front is mostly my squash bed it's 11m x 80cm , this housed the squash trellis and another 9 squash plants, they did spill over but that was fine, another couple of plants were squished into a tiny space behind the greenhouse and then they just sort of made there own way into any available space, same with a couple by the compost heap. I found all my squashes fairly easy to handle, I chopped the ends off once I was sure each plant had 3 good fruit sets on so managed the size they spread to adequately.

The useable flesh business is really important though, some of mine weren't really worth the effort after you'd peeled them got the seeds out and chopped them up. Crown prince all the way, I hope to find another type thats as good taste wise for this year. If anyone has any suggestions that would be great.

I too tend to squish as much in as possible, possibly too much ! but it worked fine with the squash, one thing I did do with all of them was to dig out a digging hole 50 X 50 X 50 cm and filled it with well rotted manure , then a bit of compost and I planted the well hardened off seedlings into that. At the same time I cut the bottom off a squash bottle and put that into the hole too about 20cm away from the seedling spout heading towards the roots, I used this for watering/ feeding throughout the season

They are a wonderful plant to grow though my second favourite after sweetcorn , have fun

[realfood]

Small sugar is a traditional New England pumpkin pie squash. I grew it last year, did very well, lots of usable flesh, only low sweetness though, but good for pies, soups. Still storing well.

[Ian_5]

excellent haul Smilingshoe and thanks for the photos of your set up - I will be unashamedly copying your trellis design! as it happens i have a border approx the same dimensions as your squash bed that is neglected at the moment... it's in partial shade due to an apple tree but considering whether to give that space a go as is unused at the moment...

realfood - seems i've lucky got a hardy variety then..did you grow your small sugar squash under cover?

cheers

ian

[realfood]

Sow the seeds edge on, pointed end down, in heat in individual cells early in April or May, and acclimatise in a frost free place such as a cool greenhouse or cold frame. Plant out when all danger of frost is over in early June. In the North of the UK, it is a good idea to provide cloche protection for the first month, as there are frequently strong, cold East winds.