Garden Basics with Farmer Fred
Tips for beginning and experienced gardeners. New episodes arrive every Friday. Fred Hoffman has been a U.C. Certified Master Gardener since 1982 and writes a weekly garden column for the Lodi News-Sentinel in Lodi, CA. A four-decade fixture in Sacramento radio, he hosted three radio shows for Northern California gardeners and farmers: The KFBK Garden Show, Get Growing with Farmer Fred, and the KSTE Farm Hour. Episode Website: https://gardenbasics.net
Garden Basics with Farmer Fred
388 Squash Growing Basics
Master Gardener Gail Pothour shares tips on growing summer and winter squash. We cover variety selection, planting, pest management, harvesting, and storage of squash to boost your yield.
Previous episodes, show notes, links, product information, and transcripts at the home site for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred, GardenBasics.net.
Now on YouTube (audio)
Pictured: Male and Female Squash Flowers
Links:
“Beyond the Garden Basics” Newsletter (by becoming a paid subscriber, you’re helping support the newsletter and this podcast. Thank You!)
Dave Wilson Nursery https://www.davewilson.com/home-garden/
All America Selections Squash varieties mentioned in today’s podcast:
Sunburst yellow scalloped squash
Early Prolific Straightneck Squash
OTHER PLANTS MENTIONED:
All About Farmer Fred:
“Beyond the Garden Basics” Newsletter
Farmer Fred website:
http://farmerfred.com
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• E-mail: fred@farmerfred.com
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Ep. 388 SQUASH GROWING BASICS, Pt. 1
Farmer Fred:
[0:06] Today, we discuss the benefits of growing squash in your garden this year. We include all the favorite summer options and the winter varieties as well, especially zucchini and pumpkins. Plus, there are heirlooms to consider. And we'll have tips on planting squash, pest management, and harvesting. Master Gardener and vegetable expert Gail Pothour joins us, and she's going to have you saying, “I did not know that!”
It's all in episode 388, Squash Growing Basics. We're podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It's the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Dave Wilson Nursery. Let's go.
If you want fresh, high-quality produce, if you want the healthiest food possible, you need to grow it yourself. And I certainly hope you're growing your own squash. There's a wide variety of flavors and textures. And don’t forget pumpkins for Halloween. Pumpkins, they're a winter squash. There's summer squash too. The infamous zucchini is probably the most famous of the summer squashes. You can experiment with heirloom varieties too, as well as less common varieties that may not be readily available in stores.
Most grocery stores don't have a very wide selection of squash, but pick up just about any quality seed catalog and you're going to see a wide variety of summer squash and winter squash seeds, especially in pumpkins, that will pique your interest.
Plus, remember, too, that at the grocery store, how long has that squash been sitting on a store shelf? Well, probably longer than if you had it growing in your backyard and you went outside and snipped it off and brought it inside. Freshly picked squash is more flavorful and nutritious than store-bought squash, because who knows where it came from and how long it took to get to the grocery store.
Squash is a nutrient-rich vegetable, too. It's packed with vitamins A, vitamin C, and fiber. And growing your own allows you to enjoy the benefits of these nutrients at their peak.
Growing squash allows you to explore a wide range of varieties from classic zucchini to those heirloom varieties. You can have not only a tasty plate, but a very pretty plate, too, when it comes to dinner time. Homegrown squash with a richer flavor and a more desirable texture compared to store-bought options is the way to go in your garden. And we need somebody to tell us about squash. I know who. Gail Pothour, Sacramento County Master Gardener. She knows her squash. They grow squash out at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center, the Sacramento County Master Gardener's Demonstration Garden. They grow squash out there every year. And it's always a crowd pleaser because they are dramatic plants to grow. And dramatic, as a euphemism, means they could take up a lot of space unless you know what you're doing. So Gail, good to have you with us. Let's talk squash here. Let's talk summer squash first. You know what's weird is, you talk about summer squash, you talk about winter squash, but they actually both get planted about the same time, don't they?
Gail Pothour:
[3:12] Right. And some people think that winter squash means you grow it in the winter. That is not correct. You grow it in the summer with your summer squash. It just stores through the winter. You don't store zucchini. You couldn't, you know, put it in a box in your garage and eat it in February. It would be moldy. So the winter squash have a hard skin. Some of them are almost shell-like, and so they will store through the winter.
Farmer Fred:
[3:40] Let's talk about some of the varieties of summer squash. People know what zucchinis look like. It's long and green, but there's also yellow crooknecks, there's straightnecks, patty pans, round squashes, and a lot more.
Gail Pothour:
[3:52] Oh, yes, and we have grown some really interesting zucchinis at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. The typical dark green, almost black, that's the more common one, that would be Fordhook. There's a couple of varieties like that. And we grow that every year. It's an All-America selection from way back. Then we have a couple of zucchinis that look completely different. One is called Gold Rush, also an All-American Selection. It's a yellow zucchini, so it's real golden in color. One of my favorites is Bossa Nova, another All-American Selection. We're an All-American Selection display garden. That's why we grow a lot of those winners. But it's a zucchini that is light green and it's got darker green modeling on it. that it's very attractive, not that typical dark green that you think of with a zucchini. We're trying one that's new to us this year called Green Zebra. It's a striped zucchini.
And then we're also growing an Early Prolific straight neck. We tend to grow that every year. It's a yellow squash that's like the crook neck, only the neck is straight. It's an All-America selection winner and then a new one that we're trying brand new all-america selection winner called Green Lightning it's a green striped scallop or patty pan it has light green stripes on a dark green background and what the All-America Selections what they do is when there's a new variety that's a breeder has developed they will compare it to a variety that's already on the market. They happen to compare it to Sunburst, which is an All-America selection that we grow every year, and it beat it out. So I'm anxious to try it because Sunburst is one of my favorite, and if Green Lightning is better than Sunburst, I'm anxious to give it a try.
Farmer Fred:
[5:47] Yeah, the Green Lightning is very interesting looking. It's green, but it has a dark green thick stripe and a thinner light green stripe that runs down the sides. And a patty pan squash is a smaller squash. To me, it looks sort of like a cupcake.
Gail Pothour:
[6:05] Yeah. Yeah. I would say that it has that shape correct. Yeah.
Farmer Fred:
[6:09] The seed varieties you're going to find of squash, of summer squash seeds at a seed rack are numerous and just pick something that looks interesting to you. Well, now this is the problem: Choosing one or two varieties and then limiting yourself to one or two plants, good luck on that. Because every instruction you see on planting squash, and they do best from seed, they do so easily from seed, you might as well plant them from seed as the soil warms up, is you plant them on a hill. The hill should be about 12 inches wide and eight inches high and be worked with a lot of compost and manures. And then on this top of this flat hill, you plant six seeds in a circle, and they will all sprout, and then pick one to keep. Yeah, right. Yeah, pick one. Good luck on that. You're going to leave more than one. You will know what you did wrong by July or August.
Gail Pothour:
[7:08] Exactly. And some people I know will leave two or three anyway. And some sources I've read said, you know, thin it to the strongest two or three. Well, in my opinion, that's too close together because they're going to be competing with each other for nutrients and water, and they're going to be close together so the air circulation won't be that great. So I say just plant one. And what I do is, because most of the summer squash tend to be bush varieties, not really long vines. But I mean, the bush varieties still tend to vine a little bit. But in my four-foot-wide raised bed, I will plant one. And then if I decide to plant a second one, it will be five or six feet away from it. because those plants can get pretty big and I don't want them to crowd each other. I want good air circulation because they can get powdery mildew. And like I say, I don't want them to compete for nutrients and water. That will affect the yield, I think, if they're too crowded.
Farmer Fred:
[8:11] You can find squash transplants at the nursery, but this is a warning we've talked about before in regards to other fruits and vegetables, is that if it's been in that pot too long, it's going to have a compromised root system and it won't develop fully. It won't give you full production. So the key, if you are shopping for any sort of transplants at the nursery when it comes to squashes, and that could include pumpkins, is you want to buy them when there's only one or two true leaves available on the top of that plant. If there's more than that, if that plant has got some size to it, you just wave goodbye to it and move on to the next plant and look for something that is smaller, that you don't see roots coming out the bottom, and that will have a better chance of survival. And as soon as you get it home, put it in the ground.
Gail Pothour:
[9:03] Right. Because squash are in the cucurbit family. So they're in the same family as cucumbers and melons and gourds. And none of those varieties in that family want to have their roots disturbed. So if it's a big plant in a small pot, undoubtedly it's root bound. And when you go to transplant it, you'll have the tendency to want to kind of loosen up those roots, but the cucurbits don't like their roots disturbed. So if you're going to be buying a plant at a garden center, make sure it's a small plant that is not root-bound. And if you're growing it yourself, it only takes about three weeks if you're doing transplants, but I would just direct seed squash. They're so easy to grow direct seeded. You don't need to do a transplant.
Farmer Fred:
[9:53] Yeah, which always amazed me about those instructions that talk about planting six seeds in a circle. Why? And other than the fact you're going to run out of seeds, So you have to buy more the next year. But no, you really don't want more than one or two plants.
And I'm getting into the habit now of truly getting down to one squash plant per hill. And the hills should be about, what, 36 inches apart.
Gail Pothour:
[10:20] I would say at least three feet. I would go more like four feet. But I mean, how much zucchini can you use unless you're planning to do a lot of freezing or give it away to food banks or that sort of thing? But they tend to be prolific. And I have learned that I usually grow either just one plant or maybe two. I'll grow a zucchini and a yellow straight neck or a scallop in two different beds often because they can get large. But yeah, how much squash do you need?
Farmer Fred:
[10:54] Well, God bless my wife who's found many recipes that use summer squash and zucchini. So yes, zucchini is usually the vegetable on the plate in the summertime. So why not grow, if you're going to grow two varieties, make them different colors like that squash gold rush you mentioned, and then like a Fordhook green zucchini, and at least you'll have some color variety.
Gail Pothour:
[11:15] Yeah, then when you make your zucchini bread, or I have a great recipe for spiced squash bread, and I can use any kind of squash I want, it adds a little color to the bread. Yeah, and they take up quite a bit of room. So unless you have a large garden, you probably only need one or two plants. And I tend to grow my summer squash, even if they're a bush variety, they can kind of, not really trail, but they do expand, is I will either grow them in a cage that I make out of concrete reinforcing wire. It's like what I would use for a tomato, only it's a little bigger or round and not as tall, but it forces the plant to grow up instead of sprawling. And then I've also been known to grow my summer squash, a trellis that I put on my bed, angle it, and just kind of train the plant to go up there. So it takes up less real estate if I do it that way.
Farmer Fred:
[12:09] And we've talked in the past about your pallet, your wood pallet that you have at an angle in your garden that you put zucchini on the sunny side and then on the shady side, you might have some lettuce growing.
Gail Pothour:
[12:23] Yeah, last year I had Tokyo Bakana cabbage growing all summer in the shade of the pallet, and then the squash grew up the pallet and it shaded it. You know, they've got big leaves. Yeah, I get two plants in the space of one.
Farmer Fred:
[12:37] It is so frustrating for people. I can tell what month it is by the questions that come in. And when I start getting questions about what's wrong with my zucchini plant, the flowers just fall off or the fruit is really small, then it falls off. I know it's June because those first fruits that come out, there's usually incomplete pollination going on. If you ever looked inside a squash flower, you probably see ants. You'll probably see a bee. You'll probably see all sorts of bugs crawling in and out. They're the pollinators.
Gail Pothour:
[13:07] Right. And I find that the most common bee that will pollinate my squash is a squash bee. And you'll find them kind of sleeping in there overnight. But it's one of the main pollinators for squash. But part of the problem is usually the male flowers start first. Squash will have both male and female flowers on the same plant. And the male flowers will start first and they have just a thin stem. The female flowers will come on later and they will have usually a shorter stem, but they'll have a little immature baby of the fruit. So if it's a zucchini, it'll look like a tiny little zucchini. If it's a patty pan, it'll look like a tiny, tiny patty pan. So that's how you tell the difference. And usually the male flowers start first.
Then the females will come on and they have to get in sync when they're blooming at the same time because the pollen is only viable for about an hour in the morning. I mean, it's a real short period of time. And so until those flowers are blooming at the same time and there are pollinators there to do the pollination, you won't get complete pollination. You won't get fruit. And also, I know that the heat can promote more male flowers. So if we have a real hot stretch, you may not have many female flowers, you'll have more male flowers. And then as it cools down, then the female flowers will come on. So it's a problem in that they have to be blooming at the same time. You have to have the flowers there at the same time. The temperatures have to be right. And if it's too hot, usually it's anything over 90 degrees, the pollen starts to go sterile. So even if you have pollinators and the female and male flowers are open at the same time, the bees and other pollinators could be transferring dead pollen because it's just gotten too hot. So, yeah, the heat does a number on the development of the fruit, the pollination and fertilization of the fruit.
Gail Pothour:
[15:15] And if you don't have complete pollination, either the little fruit will abort, just fall off. It kind of gets wrinkly and turns brown and falls off. Or it could be misshapen because every seed inside that fruit has to be fertilized. So it's not a one-time visit of a bee. It has to be lots of visits and lots of pollen grains that have to get down into there and fertilized to have every seed to be fertilized.
And the more seeds that are fertilized, the bigger and more uniform the fruit. That's what I've learned because I've done a lot of research trying to figure out what is wrong with some of my squash or my cucumbers, kind of the same thing. And it has to do with the number of pollen grains in the fertilization. Every seed has to be fertilized. And I did find out one year, I had a musk melon, what we call cantaloupes, the netted melon. And it was real flat on one side. And all that netting that should have been around the whole fruit, on that flat side, it was smooth. And so, okay, I think it must be incomplete pollination. So when I cut it open, there weren't any seeds on that flat side. All the seeds were on the rounded side. So it did show me that, okay, yeah, without the seeds being fertilized, it doesn't fully develop. The fruit doesn't develop correctly.
Farmer Fred:
[16:45] Now, of course, you can take matters in your own hands, literally, by doing some hand pollination.
Gail Pothour:
[16:51] Yeah, you can. And I'm a lazy gardener, and I don't do that sort of thing, although it would be a fun experiment. But you can do it either with a little paintbrush, take the pollen from the male flower and put on the female, or you can actually take the male flower off and peel all the petals and everything off and use that as the brush. And then you'd want to do it. I think you'd have to probably, trying to think what I remember reading, is the day before the flower opens, you'll need to either bag or tie the flower so it doesn't open and get a pollinator in there to screw it up before you get there. Then you open it up in the morning, you do the brushing with the pollen, and then you have to tie it back up or bag it so that no other pollinator gets in there. I tend to have plenty of squash, and so I don't have to do that. It seems like a lot of work, but that's one way you can do it if you're not getting complete pollination. If you don't have pollinators, you know, grow things that attract the bees and the other pollinators. So flowering plants, let your herbs flower because that will attract pollinators. So some way you've got to get bees and other pollinators in your garden.
Farmer Fred:
[18:01] Exactly. And maybe plant your squash in an area where you also have daisy-like flowers, like summertime flowers, like zinnias around that's going to attract those pollinators and might wander on over.
Gail Pothour:
[18:14] Right. In my garden and over at the horticulture center, we always plant African Blue basil or wild magic basil. Some of the bigger, not so much culinary basils, but, or you could do the culinary basils also, but we let them flower. So we have this four-foot plant that's got beautiful purple flowers on it all summer. It attracts the bees and pollinators like crazy. So wherever we have melons or cucumbers or squash, we always try to put in at least one of those plants that will attract the pollinators. But there's a number of other flowering plants that you can intersperse in your garden that would attract bees.
Farmer Fred:
[18:52] Oh, yeah, exactly. And they love the flat-faced, daisy-like flowers, as well as the tubular flowers. And I've often heard it said, as far as people who like to hand pollinate, is that they'll just clip off a male flower from a zucchini and go over to the female flower that's open on a nice morning and just rub the male flower inside the female flower and magic happens. It sounds to me like then there could be incomplete pollination with that process.
Gail Pothour:
[19:25] I would think so. And since the pollen is viable for a very short period of time, unless they've done it early in the morning, you know, the pollen might not be viable. So it's hard to know. It would be a fun experiment to do, but I just haven't had the desire to do that yet. I seem to get enough squash without having to do it on my own.
Farmer Fred:
[19:48] Yeah, if you're patient, it will come. And again, you will have more zucchini than you know what to do with, especially. And that's why you keep plenty of shopping bags around. And when the sun goes down, you tiptoe to your neighbor's front porch with a bag of zucchini.
Gail Pothour:
[20:05] Isn't there a national leave the zucchini on your neighbor's doorstep day? I think there is.
Farmer Fred:
[20:10] Yeah, probably in August. Yeah, there probably is. But summer squash, that's the zucchinis, the yellow summer squashes, and the patty pan squashes.
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Farmer Fred
Let's get back to our conversation with Sacramento County Master Gardner Gail Pothour about squash growing basics. And now let's talk about winter squashes.
SQUASH GROWING BASICS, Pt. 2
Farmer Fred:
[21:43] And then there's the winter squashes, which are very interesting, very colorful, and usually have an outer shell that's very, very hard. Things like acorn squash, butternut squash, the delicata spaghetti squash, and of course, pumpkins.
Gail Pothour:
[22:00] That's right. And as I say, they're called winter squash because they're not grown in the winter. They're stored through the winter. And one way you can tell when they're ready to harvest is they will change color. So for instance, a butternut squash tends to start out green, not dark like a zucchini, but it's a darker green. And then as it matures to its mature color, it's more of a tan or a flesh colored. So know what the mature color is supposed to look like so that you know if it's there yet. Then I do the thumbnail test where I try to pierce the skin with my thumbnail. It shouldn't easily pierce it. It may leave a slight dent, but it shouldn't easily go in. If it does, then let it continue to grow for a few more days or a week and try it again. But you want that outer skin to be hard. And then when you cut it, be sure you leave at least a couple inches on the stem. Oh, another thing, the stem will usually get woody or turn tan, so the stem changes color as well. Anyway, when you cut it, leave a couple inches of the stem and don't carry it by the stem. I cringe when I see people carrying pumpkins by the stem. That stem, if it breaks off, then that's an entrance place for mold. So you won't be able to store it through the winter. Then I like to wash the outside of it.
If you're going to store it, you want to get all the bacteria off. This has been outside all summer. So I wash it, and then I'll do a water bleach solution, one part bleach to nine parts water. Or sometimes I even use the old, what we use during COVID, those antibacterial wipes. I've got a plethora of those, so I'll wipe those off. I want to get as much bacteria off as I can. Then you let them cure because they will be sweeter. Most varieties will be sweeter if they've had a chance to cure, because then the carbohydrates turn a little more sugary. So you put them in a dry place for a week or two, a couple weeks, and they should be a little sweeter.
Gail Pothour:
[24:12] I think acorns are the only ones that you don't cure. They're ready to eat right away, I understand. But most of the other winter squash, you'll want to cure them. And then store them in a cool place. Most of them should last three months or so. Some will last longer depending on the variety.
Farmer Fred:
[24:31] I've noticed some that are bragging about how well they store. There's one acorn and winter squash called Night Shift that Johnny's Seeds has in their catalog. And they call it a “high-yielding acorn squash that keeps its dark color and superior flavor in storage through the winter holidays and beyond. And ideal when a vining habit is preferred or if you find bush-type acorns lacking in flavor.” A vigorous vine, by the way, that's a euphemism, “vigorous vine provide excellent cover and hold up well under disease pressure”. That means it's going to sprawl, folks. These winter squashes, we should point out, they take a long time to ripen, 95 to 100 days or so.
Gail Pothour:
[25:15] Yeah, and it depends on the variety, too. I grow a personal-sized butternut squash every year. It's called honey nut, and it's a little more, a little different color of skin than the typical butternut. To me, the butternut has just kind of a, light tan color. This is a darker tan with a little bit of green on it. And it's personal size, which I like. If there's only two of us, I don't need a huge Waltham butternut that will last me forever. So I grow that every year. I grow it up a trellis because the fruit is small. And the problem with it, is even after I cure it and get it all sanitized and everything, It really only lasts about three months. I still have some. Here it is April. I still have some in a cool part of my house, but they're getting soft and wrinkly, so they don't last as long as some of the other winter squashes. You know, three months, to me, is pretty good.
Farmer Fred:
[26:14] Have you experimented with spaghetti squash?
Gail Pothour:
[26:18] We have. In fact, we have grown it at the Horticulture Center. We are growing a variety called Tivoli this year. It's an All-America Selection winner. And I've only grown it, I think, once in my own garden. It's been years ago. But we do Tivoli or some sort of spaghetti squash about every other year at the Hort Center. And we've had pretty good luck with it. Tivoli is a nice one. The spaghetti squashes tend to be a little smaller. They're not humongous, you know. So they're manageable. I don't know how long they store. We've never cured them and let them store. So I'm not sure what the storability is for those, how long they'll last. But I do like spaghetti squash.
Farmer Fred:
[26:59] I noticed that the folks at All America Selection say about the Tivoli squash that they can be grown as close as two feet from each other. They're that small and have that sort of a semi-bush character to them.
Gail Pothour:
[27:13] And I think the last time we grew it, we did grow it up a trellis, as I recall. So the fruit is small enough that you can grow it up a trellis. And actually, we always grow Waltham butternut, which is an old, old, old All-America selection. And it has huge fruit. If you're familiar with the typical butternut, it's a big squash. We grow those up a trellis every year. And we've got a very large trellis that my husband and I built that's probably eight feet tall, three-sided. and we'll put a plant at the base of each of those sides. But you can grow even those long, vining, heavy, fruited squash up trellises if the trellis is substantial.
Farmer Fred:
[27:57] Well, let's talk about the most famous of the winter squashes. I think it's the most famous, and that is pumpkins.
Gail Pothour:
[28:02] Pumpkins, which are actually the same species as zucchini. Did you know that?
Farmer Fred:
[28:06] I did not know that, no.
Gail Pothour:
[28:08] Yeah. So it's important to know that kind of thing if you're going to save seed because all of the squashes, I think there's five or six different species, but there's three or four that are most common. And... Anything within the same species can cross-pollinate. So if you're growing a pumpkin next to a zucchini and you want to save seed because they're both heirlooms, you could end up with some weird thing next year. Yeah, so it's important to know what the species is.
Farmer Fred:
[28:40] The zucchini that lived on your front porch on Halloween.
Gail Pothour:
[28:43] Yeah, kind of, yeah.
Farmer Fred:
[28:45] But there certainly are a lot of colorful and interesting-looking pumpkins available. I especially like the white ones. I like the tiny ones like Jill B. Little or Jack B. Little that don't take up much space. But when you see the price of pumpkins at the nursery come October, you will say to yourself, “I could have grown that for half the price”.
Gail Pothour:
[29:07] And I usually do that. My vegetable garden isn't large enough to accommodate a lot of pumpkin-type things. But I do have a spot up in my retaining wall by my fruit trees where I will often grow one or two different pumpkin. I call them pumpkins. They're winter squash that I can use for decoration during the fall. And one of my favorites is black futsu. It happens to be a Japanese heirloom. It's small. I want to say the size of muskmelon cantaloupe, about that size. It starts out almost black, and then it turns kind of a tan colored with mottled gray and blue. So it's very decorative. It's really heavily ribbed. So it's small, but it's also good eating. It has a sweet, nutty, chestnutty taste. But I like to grow it for ornamental purposes, and it will last all winter. So it's a good store.
Farmer Fred:
[30:06] Yeah, it's kind of a bumpy looking pumpkin squash, isn't it?
Gail Pothour:
[30:10] Mm-hmm, uh-huh. And it happens to be in the same species as butternut. So if I grow my honey nut butternut and I grow the black futsu, I don't dare try to save seed because they can cross. So if you're doing seed saving, it's important to know the species.
Farmer Fred:
[30:28] And with the black futsu pumpkin. It's sort of like the name would imply, sort of blackish-orange-ish with deeply ribbed, too.
Gail Pothour:
[30:38] Right, really ribbed. And sometimes when the mature color is almost all tan, but otherwise it maybe has a little bit of bluish-gray on it. It's very attractive. I don't eat them very often because I use them mostly for ornamental purposes, but it has to have a sweet, nutty flesh, really nice flavor.
Farmer Fred:
[30:58] And, of course, probably if you go to a nursery or a garden center in October and they have a pumpkin display, usually one of the more popular varieties are the Cinderella varieties of pumpkins, which are kind of flat and oblong. And one of them has a French name that I can't pronounce. Maybe you can, Rouge Vif d'Etampes
Gail Pothour:
[31:16] Rouge Vif d'Etampes yeah. I took Spanish, not French, but I think that's how you pronounce it. And then there's another one, Galeux D'Eysines. That's another one. Really nice. And those are all in the species of Maxima. So those varieties in that species tend to be larger. So you've got the Cinderella pumpkin, that big flat orange one that's named after the, well, I don't know which came first, but the Cinderella movie, the pumpkin that became the carriage. That's where the name came from, I think. The Jarrahdale, which is from Australia, is kind of a bluish gray pumpkin, but it's big. So the Maxima species tends to have some of these larger varieties.
Farmer Fred:
[32:00] Yeah, the Jarrahdale is very interesting. That's J-A-R-R-A-H-D-A-L-E. It's sort of a, I don't know what shade of blue green that is, but it's very interesting, almost ghost-like.
Gail Pothour:
[32:15] Yeah, and some of those bluish colored squashes do tend to originate in Australia. Don't ask me why, but there are several of them that have that unusual color and they're all from Australia. We're also going to be growing one of our winter squash at the Hort Center this year is in that same maxima species. It's a kabocha squash. It's called Sweet Jade. It's an all-American selection. So it's kind of personal size, a little single serving, dark green, round, pumpkin-y looking thing, but it's a kabocha squash. So that's in the same species as the Jarrahdale and the Marina di Chioggia and a lot of these bigger squashes.
Farmer Fred:
[32:59] Let's talk a little bit about the care for squash plants, be they summer squash or winter squash. I would think that most of your fertilizer is worked into the soil before you plant.
Gail Pothour:
[33:11] Yes, that's ideal is you would like to have fertile, well-drained soil. So add your compost and amendments and fertilizers as you're preparing the bed. And we find that if you have prepared the bed adequately, there's enough nutrition. And if you've had a soil test, you know if you need something. Then we don't really need to fertilize much after that. Maybe we'll give it a drench when it starts flowering or if the vine starts to run with some diluted fish emulsion. Sometimes we'll put kelp in there. But it's a liquid, and so it's a soil drench rather than coming in later with dry fertilizer. We like to use the liquid fertilizer.
Farmer Fred:
[33:58] For years and years and years, whenever I read anything about growing pumpkins, they always talked about working steer manure or chicken manure into your bed before you plant.
Gail Pothour:
[34:10] As long as it's well composted. Right. You don't want to go to the barnyard and get steer manure and throw it in your gardens. We do use a chicken manure at the Hort Center. Actually, we use it in the orchard and in our grapes all through the whole horticulture center. It's a composted pelleted chicken manure that's, I think it's 4-3-2. So it's low numbers, not high nitrogen. And I don't think you want to have really high nitrogen for squash because that will promote a lot of foliage, maybe at the expense of some of the flowers. So maybe back off on high nitrogen. I'm not sure I would put blood meal or something that's really high nitrogen in. So a low nitrogen fertilizer, add some compost. And then watch your plants. If they start looking like they have nutrient deficiencies, maybe add something. But also know that a lot of the squash plants have variegated or multicolored on their leaves. We've had people who would come and look at our zucchini plant and think something is wrong with it because it's not mottled. It's got gray streaks in it. That's what the leaves look like. So know what your plant's supposed to look like. If it's kind of variegated, there's probably nothing wrong with it. So know what the leaves look like. But yes, I would stay away from high nitrogen.
Farmer Fred:
[35:38] Squash pests, what are your favorites?
Gail Pothour:
[35:43] Well, we always get aphids. I think all the cucurbits tend to get aphids toward the middle of summer. We used to have squash bugs. And I'm trying to think which squash plants they were on because some of them seem to be a little resistant. But we haven't had squash bugs in a number of years, knock on wood. I don't know why. But when we did have squash bugs, we learned what the eggs look like, what the nymphs look like, and what the adults. And we would go out there on our work days and do insect check. And if we found eggs, we'd squash them. If we found the nymphs, we'd squash them as well. The adults can fly, so it's a little harder to catch them. But if you know all the insect stages, you can... Kind of get them under control when they're young. But other than aphids, we tend to not have too many pests anymore. They're more vertebrate pests now. We have wild turkeys out there and brown squirrels, but yeah, we seem to be doing okay.
Farmer Fred:
[36:46] Yeah. Even though the town of Fair Oaks is famous for their free-range chickens, there are no free-range chickens at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center.
Gail Pothour:
[36:55] Occasionally there are. We've had people drop them off. There was one year where we had quite a bit of damage by some free-range chickens, but now it's the turkeys. Yeah.
Farmer Fred:
[37:09] All right. Anything we left out on squash we need to mention?
Gail Pothour:
[37:13] Don't think so. My favorite, probably my favorite zucchini is Ortolana di Faenza. It's a light green. I get it from Renee's Seeds, and it's excellent. I grow that every year. My favorite yellow straightneck was Butterbelly, and I don't think anybody's carrying it anymore. And I think that's kind of a problem if you like varieties that are hybrids because eventually the breeders will decide to go on to something else, and Butterbelly was a hybrid, so I can't find it anymore. But the Sunburst patty pan is great. I just really like summer squash.
Farmer Fred:
[37:54] Yeah, the Ortolana di Faenza from Renee's Garden is, and she has a way with words, she describes it as “an Italian heirloom that yields nicely shaped light green fruits you'll find meltingly tender, custardy, and delicious, never watery or mushy, early bearing vines with marbled leaves.”
Gail Pothour:
[38:15] Yeah, that was the word I couldn't think of, marbled. So a lot of the zucchinis do have marbled leaves. So know what the leaves are supposed to look like so that you know you don't have a disease. Because some of the diseases that we get, we don't get so many insects out there, but we do get some viruses. We'll get the watermelon mosaic virus on our summer squash periodically out at the Hort Center, which I think those might be transmitted by aphids. I'm trying to think, but transmitted by insects. and that is a different look the leaves actually are modeled looking and the fruit will have color breaking so if you have a a yellow crookneck squash it's all yellow well if it has a watermelon mosaic virus it's yellow and green and all mottled and actually kind of pretty but it has all this color breaking so that's one way you can tell you have that and we get that semi-regularly at the Hort Center.
Farmer Fred:
[39:16] And what do you do for it?
Gail Pothour:
[39:17] Well, we always take it out to the state lab to confirm. And now we don't even take it out anymore because we get it so often and we know what it looks like. There is no management for those viruses. So the best management is take the plant out. And it usually happens later in the season. And just so you know, apparently the fruit is still edible. The state lab confirmed that there are no viruses in plants it will hurt us. If you can get around that weird look of the squash, it's perfectly edible. So yeah, it's just the color.
Farmer Fred:
[39:52] Can the virus overwinter in the soil?
Gail Pothour:
[39:55] I don't know the answer to that. Since it's transmitted by insect, I don't know.
Gail Pothour:
[40:01] That sounds like a research project. I don't know.
(side note: according to UCIPM, the only control is to fool the virus-carrying aphids not to land on the squash, by using reflective mulch)
Farmer Fred:
[40:04] It sounds like crop rotation would be in order.
Gail Pothour:
[40:07] Yeah. Or ask Debbie Flower next time she's on the show.
Farmer Fred:
[40:10] There you go. All right. By the way, when planting squash, you really do want to wait for the warmer months, even here in USDA zone nine. And they may say, oh, yeah, you can plant in April. I would say wait for May and June for planting squash.
Gail Pothour:
[40:24] Yeah. Any of the cucurbits, I would say avoid planting them too early because they're just going to get stunted. Or if you direct seed them, the seeds could rot before they come up. So May is always the earliest that I would plant any of those. Yeah. And we have such a long growing season. You could certainly plant in June as well.
Farmer Fred:
[40:44] Summer squash, winter squash. Try it. You'll like it. Really. Gail Pothour, Sacramento County Master Gardener. We squashed them today. Thank you.
Gail Pothour:
[40:53] You're welcome, Fred.
BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER
Farmer Fred:
[41:02] This time of year, it pays to take a close look at your deciduous fruit trees, your peaches, nectarines, apricots, apples, pluots, and a lot more. They're probably forming very small fruit right now. By the way, are they crowded together? Well, if you want bigger fruit, pretty fruit this summer, now's the time to thin your fruit. But how much of the fruit do you remove? Which one should you take out? What's the best way to remove the crowded fruit? Which one should you leave on the tree to fully ripen? We cover all that in this week's Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter. Plus, the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter has expanded, with extra benefits for paid subscribers. Besides the full report issued every Friday, we have a new weekly extra publication just for paid subscribers. It's entitled Things to Do in the Garden Each Week, and that comes out on Mondays. Subscriptions are reasonably priced, too. $5 a month for both the Friday Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter as well as the extra Monday editions, or you can save some money and do it by the year, $50. Or any amount above that if you're feeling generous or maybe you won the lottery.
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Farmer Fred
[43:50] Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every friday and it's brought to you by Dave Wilson Nursery. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast as well as an accurate transcript of the podcast, visit our website, gardenbasics.net. And thank you so much for listening and your support.