We accidentally created a mutant cross-pollinated squash. I'd heard of this, and perhaps it's happened to us before with the fodder squashes from last season (those were dreadful to me but the pigs didn't care, I thought it was more about where they were grown than their genetics), but this time it's... delightful. Most likely one of our ronde de nice summer squashes crossed with delicata, since those are what happened to grow nearby, and it's sweet like a delicata winter squash but with the texture of a summer squash. It also might be happening with another, since the "zuchinni" growing nearby is, uh, well, it looks like nothing I've seen before. I'll post a thread of mutant squash pictures soon.
In my defense, I didn't think any of this was going to grow, since these seeds were all so old. I let my children seed blast this basin thinking "well, we'll get what we get!" and then nothing germinated for three weeks so I figured it was a lost cause. Then we manured it to prepare it for the next season and, well, now we have six foot long squash vines and more fruit than we're going to know what to do with when it comes time to harvest them. Happy accidents!
#Gardening #Zone9 #MojaveDesert #California #Permaculture #Squash