A Quick Round of Identi-Squash

Cafe Society
1

Mrs. Zeke has asked me to appeal to the collective brilliance of the Dope in order to unmystery a mystery squash that defied her googling.

It is a very dark green, hard fleshed winter squash that resembles an artillery shell (though not quite as tapered at the top.) It is about 12" long and weighs between 7 and 10 pounds (obviously this is just an estimate.)

The only thing we know for sure is that it is not a spaghetti squash nor is it a zucchini.

Any help would be appreciated as this is to form a goodly portion of tomorrow’s evening repast.

Thanks

Zeke

2

Any markings/striations or ridges?

Is the flesh orange or white/green?

3

Take a look at this site. Lots of squash pictured. Scroll down to Green Hubbard squash and see if this might be what you have.

4

7 discernible ridges at the top becoming less and less distinct into invisibility as they progress down the body. No striations or other markings.

Orange hard flesh. Seed pouch(?) is spongy. It was very hard to cut.

5

Nope, not a hubbard. Nor did I see it on that page :frowning:

I guess I should say it is oblong - almost like a basic eggplant but not as fat.

6

I don’t know why you didn’t see the hubbards; if you scroll down through the winter squash they are in alphabetical order and there are both grey and green ones. They may be too fat but they are definitely oblong-ish. Here’s a link to a picture of a hubbard that’s definitely oblong.

7

Seeds all the way through the body, or concentrated in a spherical cavity at the blossom end?

8

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I did see the hubbard squashes. What I had meant was that I didn’t see our squash anywhere on the page. Sorry about that :slight_smile:

All the way through. Seeds are about the same size as pumpkin seeds.

Seeds are arranged in parallel columns with stringy material beneath and around.

Having now cut it in half we can also say that it smells very much like pumpkin.

9

Where did you acquire this squash?

Last year, we grew some pumpkins in our yard. We saved the seeds from one of them and planted them again this year. What wound up growing from the seeds were several different squashes; one looked just like the pumpkins from the previous year, but the others were various shapes and colors, from ‘kinda zucchini-like’ to ‘yellowish, oblong, vaguely pumpkiny-smelling’. Apparently that’s what you get from planting ‘hybrid seeds’ rather than ‘heirloom seeds’…

So perhaps what you have is some sort of hybrid?

10

We got it from my mother-in-law who got it from God knows who.

We were thinking it may be a hybrid ourselves.

Thanks to all who have weighed in so far.

11

It could easily be a cross if someone grew it from saved seed - cucurbits are often described as ‘promiscuous’ - that is, very readily pollinated by other species/varieties that may be growing nearby - or even if they were saved from a self-pollinated fruit of an F1 hybrid variety, they may not necessarily look like their parent.

12

Moved to Cafe Society from General Questions.

samclem, moderator