The Great Cucurbita Experiment

I bought a shit-load of seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (link at right). Good folks, fast and cheap shipping. No matter how many seeds you buy, shipping is only $2.95.

Anyway, here's what I'm going to attempt to grow this season (descriptions from Baker Creek catalog):

WINTER SQUASHES:

• Black Futsu
  (cucurbita moschata) Rare, black Japanese squash, the fruit is flattened, round and has heavy ribbing. Very unique and beautiful. The black fruit will turn a rich chestnut color in storage. Flesh is golden color and has the rich taste of hazelnuts. Fruits are 3-8 lbs. each and vines give huge yields.


• Cushaw White (Jonathan Pumpkin)
  100 days (cucurbita mixta) A rare Cushaw type, white skin and sweet pale orange flesh. Easy to grow, huge yields, and good resistance to squash bugs. A popular heirloom from the south. (1891)


• Red Kuri (Hokkaido)
  92 days. (cucurbita maxima) A red-orange Japanese winter squash, fruit are 5-10 lbs. each and teardrop-shaped. The golden flesh is smooth, dry, sweet and rich, a great yielding and keeping variety.


• Sweet Dumpling
  (cucurbita pepo) One of the sweetest of all! The small flattened ribbed 1 lb. fruit has a white skin with green stripes. The sweet, tender orange flesh makes this variety the favorite of many.


• Table Bush Queen
  (cucurbita pepo) Here is an exciting true bush version of "Table Queen Acorn", 36" plants stay compact and produce heavy yields of these delicious squash, with dry orange flesh. A great variety for small gardens almost anywhere in the USA.


• Winter Luxury Pie Pumpkin
  (cucurbita pepo) This beautiful pumpkin was introduced by Johnson & Stokes in 1893. Lovely 6-lb golden fruit have white netting and are perfect for pies. In fact, this is one of the best tasting pie pumpkins you can grow, with very sweet and smooth flesh, a favorite of all who grow it.

SUMMER SQUASHES:

• Costata Romanesco
  52 days. Famous, ribbed zucchini from Rome, Italy. The distinctive, long fruit are flutted with medium, green-striped skin. The cut slices are scalloped. When small, they are popular fried whole with the flower still on. Rich and very flavorful. A perfect, gourmet variety for the market grower.


• Yellow Scallop
  (Golden Custard) Beautiful bright yellow fruit with a rich, mellow flavor. Likely predates Columbian times, a rare native American squash. Bush plants with good yields.

TOMATOES:

• Green Zebra
  Beautiful chartreuse with deep lime-green stripes, very attractive. Flesh is bright green and very rich tasting, sweet with a sharp bite to it. A favorite tomato of many high-class chefs, specialty markets and home gardeners. Yield is excellent. Around 3 ounces each.


• Black Cherry
  Beautiful black cherries, look like large, dusky purple grapes; they have that rich flavor that makes black tomatoes famous. Market growers report that this variety is an incredible seller, large vines yield very well. Very unique and delicious.


• Riesentraube
  This old German heirloom was offered in Philadelphia by the mid-1800's. The sweet red 1 oz fruit grow in large clusters and the name means "Giant Bunch of Grapes" in German. It is probably the most popular small tomato with seed collectors as many enjoy the rich, full tomato flavor that is missing in today's cherry types. Large plants produce massive yields.


• Plum Lemon
  70 days. The bright canary-yellow 3" fruit, looks just like a fresh lemon. This variety was collected by Kent Whealy of Seed Savers Exchange, from a elderly seedsman at the Bird Market in Moscow. Delicious, sweet taste.

MELONS:

• Tigger
  The fruit are vibrant yellow with brilliant fire-red, zigzag stripes, (a few fruit may be solid yellow), simply beautiful! They are also the most fragrant melons, with a rich, sweet intoxicating aroma that will fill a room. The white flesh gets sweeter in dry climates. Small in size the fruits weigh up to 1 lb. - perfect for a single serving. The vigorous plants yield heavily, even in dry conditions. This heirloom came from an Armenian market located in a mountain valley.


• Golden Sweet
  Totally groovy looking, with their gorgeous, lemon-colored rinds and small size. The flesh is white, crisp and good. The skin is so thin that many people do not peel them prior to eating, but enjoy them straight out of the garden. This Oriental variety is also very early, and the compact vines produce like crazy! Pick fruit when they turn golden color. Easy to grow; these are popular in Taiwan.

ASSORTED WILDFLOWERS:

• Black-Eyed Susan
  A popular native variety from the Great Plains of North America. Large yellow daisies with dark brown centers. Good in heat and drought.


• Mexican Sunflower - Torch
  (Tithonia rotundifolia) (GOLDEN FLOWER OF THE AZTECS) Brilliant red-orange 2"- 3" flowers; an excellent butterfly plant. These bloom over a very long season, and the plants produce masses of blooms. The large 5' plants are very beautiful. Common along roadsides in the high mountains of central Mexico.


• Wild Sunflower
  The small yellow sunflower that grows wild over so much of the USA. They do very well in dry or poor soil--great for birds.

Wildly ambitious? Yes! Foolhardy in the extreme? Yes! Setting myself up for disappointment? We'll see!

Here's how I've started my seeds (March 16):

I bought a shop light ($17.95), two 40-watt flourescent bulbs ($5.95) and a timer ($4.95) at Lowe's. I've got the lamp housing set directly on two cement blocks on the shop bench in the garage, about 3-4" above the tops of the seedling cups.

The seedling cups are 30 sets of two clear plastic party cups, set one on top of the other, and taped together with masking tape. Each bottom cup has three holes drilled in the bottom, the top cups are labeled with a label-maker.

I've filled each with a 50/50 mix of moist sphagnum moss and vemiculite. Each cup has three seeds and about 10 spritzes of water from a spray bottle. I forgot to spray the Black Futsu before I taped them up, so I'll have to keep an eye on those and see how fast they dry out.

My only concern at this point is the temperature in the garage. It's snowing like a mofo right now, so it's pretty cold out there. I don't have anything at this point to regulate the temp near the seedlings, so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that they're not too terribly cold out there.

Looked online today and found out that the average date of last frost in Northern Nevada is the middle of May, so I'm pretty much on schedule for starting the tomatoes, but kind of early for starting the squashes. I'll have transplant to bigger containers at least once before they go in the ground.

Haven't started the wildflowers yet. Probably next week. I'm in the process of finally buying a digital camera, so look for more pictures, less yapping, very soon.

Like I said, its snowing today. Probably the last big one for the season, but you never know. It's nice to be pro-active inside, though. I'm drawing garden diagrams, whispering to my seedlings, dreaming of a bountiful harvest. Last night before the storm hit, I cut back a bunch of last year's growth and added to the compost pile (if you can call a 6-foot high pyramid of dry, crunchy tumbleweeds a compost pile). I also emptied out some of last year's containers. I need to scrub them out and add fresh soil for this year. Not sure yet what I want to put in containers.

So that's what's going on for now. I'll probably just be tidying up the back lot and checking on seedling for awhile now. I'll post later with any breaking news!