Dry Winter Squash

[gardensup]

I grew up with Burgess Buttercup squash that I remember was sweet and dry when baked. To me they are the benchmark against which I compare everything else.

As I have come to realize, there are many other varieties out there that I have yet to experience. This year I tasted a number of other squashes including Pink Banana, Sibley, Grey Ghost, Lower Salmon River, and Sweet Meat but they all have been either a little less sweet than I would liked or quite watery or both. I recognize that this could be in part due to my local growing conditions and just an "off" year.

In doing some research over the last few months, I have come up with a potential grow list for 2012. They include:

Australian Butter

Baby Blue Hubbard

Baby Green Hubbard

Boston Marrow

Chersonskaya

Guatemalan Blue Banana

Krupnoplodnaya-1

Silver Bell

Sunshine (hybrid)

Vitaminnaya

Volzhskaya Seraya 92

The written descriptions sound good but I was wondering if anyone has grown them and / or tasted them to know if they will have the sweet flavor and dry baked flesh similar to the Buttercup squash?

Would appreciate comments on the list above as well as any other recommendations which might be suitable based on your experience.

Thanks in advance!

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I notice that with one exception (vitaminaya), that the squashes that you selected are from the maxima species... May I suggest trying some of the other species as well? Moschatas/butternuts are glorious squash, ever bit as sweet as the maximas, and much less susceptible in my garden to dying at the sucking and gnawing of insects or the ravages of fungus. I don't much care for the taste of pepo winter squash, so I don't grow them, and I won't recommend you try any more than the vitaminaya. There are also the argryrosperma squash to consider. I haven't ever successfully grown a cushaw, but I'll keep trying. Perhaps I'll hate the taste.

[castanea]

You're very short on the Asian varieties commonly known as kabochas, which are all dry and sweet and delicious. Some of them are buttercup relatives, but they are often often superior in flavor. Sunshine is a kabocha type, and similar to many buttercups, but there are many better kabochas than Sunshine.

Just check out the squashes you find listed at these two Asian seed companies in the US:

www.kitazawaseed.com/seeds_winter_squash.html

www.evergreenseeds.com/orientalsquash.html

If you're in Europe, check out Bobby Seeds and KCB Samen both of which have an excellent selection of seeds of South American and Asian dry squashes.

[littleminnie]

Amy Goldman's book about Heirloom Squash gives a lot of info about taste and texture. I suppose your taste would gear toward the Maxima specie of squash like buttercups, hubbards, kabocha etc.

Any fruit will be watery if there is rain or water before harvest. Keep the area dry for better taste.

[castanea]

By the way, I have grown about half of the varieties listed including Sunshine. They were all good and all dry but inferior to the best kabochas.

[diane]

If you've already tried some of your list of squash, you would not have tasted them at their best. They get sweeter as they age.

[canadamike]

very good point here.

And ,may I recommend the wonderful POTIMARRON?

[raymondo]

Two worth trying at some point:
Uncle David's Dakota Dessert - a maxima, good and dry,
Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato - a pepo with lovely texture and usually produces plenty of fruit.

Of the ones you've listed I've only tried Australian Butter. Excellent flavour and texture but not as dry as some, at least not when I've grown it.

[Darth Slater]

Hey Michael isnt potimorron and Red Kuri the same squash?
And minnie I think you meant to say Kabocha as Buttercup is a maxima and so is Hubbard.
Butternut is kabocha.

[raymondo]

Kabochas are Cucurbita maxima whereas butternuts are Cucurbita moschata.

[khoomeizhi]

in one of her books, carol deppe talks about how the true sweet meat has ceased to exist in most seed - that some of what's marketed under that name isn't as sweet, dry, or short-season as the real deal. she bred a variety that she claims is much more like the squash the name was originally designated for...'oregon true sweet meat' or something...don't know how available it is yet.

[castanea]

Kabocha is a generic non scientific term for certain types of smallish round Asian squashes. Most are maximas, but they do not have to be maximas. Some Japanese and Thai kabochas are moschatas. Butternuts however are not kabochas. The word pumpkin can also have an imprecise meaning when applied to Asian squashes.

[littleminnie]

Jan 29, 2012 5:33:33 GMT -5 Darth Slater said:

Hey Michael isnt potimorron and Red Kuri the same squash?
And minnie I think you meant to say Kabocha as Buttercup is a maxima and so is Hubbard.
Butternut is kabocha.

I often get buttercup and butternut mixed up but not this time. Buttercup is a maxima; butternut a moschata. Kabocha IMO is close to but not exactly the same as buttercup since it has no blossom end part, if you know what I mean.

[raymondo]

Jan 29, 2012 12:43:24 GMT -5 castanea said:

Kabocha is a generic non scientific term for certain types of smallish round Asian squashes. Most are maximas, but they do not have to be maximas. Some Japanese and Thai kabochas are moschatas. Butternuts however are not kabochas. The word pumpkin can also have an imprecise meaning when applied to Asian squashes.

Ah...thanks for the clarification. I hadn't realised that kabocha referred to a type of squash that spanned two species. And you're right about pumpkin. It has different meanings to different groups of people. Here in Australia, for example, it is used for any squash that is used at the mature stage, no matter what species.

[castanea]

Jan 29, 2012 16:31:15 GMT -5 littleminnie said:

Jan 29, 2012 5:33:33 GMT -5 Darth Slater said:

Hey Michael isnt potimorron and Red Kuri the same squash?
And minnie I think you meant to say Kabocha as Buttercup is a maxima and so is Hubbard.
Butternut is kabocha.

I often get buttercup and butternut mixed up but not this time. Buttercup is a maxima; butternut a moschata. Kabocha IMO is close to but not exactly the same as buttercup since it has no blossom end part, if you know what I mean.

Some Japanese kabochas were bred using buttercups but not all. Those that were, have been extensively crossed and reselected to meet the eating preferences of the Japanese and to get rid of the button.