I have been growing the same variety of squash in the gardens for quite a few years,
one that grows quite well in the relatively cool summers of Ireland.
The climate here is not great for this heat loving plant, but this variety has a decent reputation
for producing delicious squash in cool climates, if they have just enough warmth to mature.
But I have been wanting to try to find other varieties that also produce well,
and to explore the diversity of types, sizes and tastes that are possible with squash and pumpkins.
So this year we grew a few plants of another variety that was
highly recommended by a few people. It grew well, but by harvest time,
it was obvious that there was something wrong, with quite different looking squash in the patch,
which seem to be the result of an accidental cross pollination.
I have grown a few other squash varieties in the past,
but I usually rely on a hybrid variety called Crown Prince,
which has a good reputation for being able to produce a good crop in this part of the world.
I really like these distinctive grey coloured squash which typically weigh between 3 and 4
kilograms, that have really dense orange flesh inside with really rich flavour.
Or this is the case with fruit that have had enough time and warmth to mature properly,
something that isn’t always possible in the Midlands of Ireland.
I have wanted to try growing others, and over the past few years I have collected seeds from
quite a few different varieties, and finally got a chance to do a variety trial this year.
But also I wanted to include the Delicata variety which a few people had recommended to me,
which apparently has a great taste, a bit like sweet potatoes, with a thin edible skin.
This sounded like a good compliment to the Crown Prince variety, and although I
had trouble finding these seeds from my usual suppliers, I was able to buy one packet from
a supplier that I don’t normally buy from. And because it was so highly recommended,
I replaced 4 of the squash plants that are usually grown in the Simple Garden
with this Delicata variety, sharing the large bed with 4 plants of the Crown Prince variety.
This was a lot of space to give over to a variety I had not tried before, and it ended up being
a mistake, but more because of the quality of the seed rather than the variety itself.
I wasn’t really paying close enough attention to the growth of these plants during the summer,
but they all seemed to have similar leaves and growth habit,
though one plant may have been affected by downy mildew earlier than the others.
Looking at the squash fruit growing under the leaves, I did notice that there was
differences between them, but I though this might be differences in development or stages.
But when the leaves died back there were obvious differences
in the huge number of squash that were produced. There were quite a few dark green squash, which
stood out the most, though I initially thought were unripe, but I noticed that they all came from
the same vines, leading from one of the 4 plants. The was an obvious issue, and I though it might
have been the rogue mutation within the genetics of the variety, but looking at all the other
squash, there was not the usual consistency that I would expect from a refined variety.
And when we harvested them all, and placed they beside each other to cure in one of
the polytunnels, it was fairly obvious that the variations could be grouped together.
There were a few that I wasn’t sure about, but I was able to divide all the squash into four
different types, matching the 4 plants. I wish we had traced all of the vines,
and separated out all the squash that grew from each plant, as I suspect most
of the squash that I placed in each group would have come from one of the plants.
Another grower who happened to be visiting the gardens recently, had a fair amount of experience
with the Delicata variety, and confirmed that they normally don’t look like most of the squash that
I harvested, though some of them were quite close. And they confirmed that the skin was normally very
thin on the Delicata squash they grew, but some of the squash I had harvested had really hard skin.
So, although one of the sets of squash was close to what a Delicata normally looks like,
the rest seemed to be significant variations, and I can only assume that this is due
to cross pollination of the flowers that produced the original seeds that I bought.
There are 4 different species of squash or pumpkins, which apparently don’t normally
cross pollinate with each other, and the Delicata variety belongs to the ‘pepo’ type,
which also includes the courgettes and zucchini, the spaghetti squash, and acorn squash.
And I think that that there may have been an accidental
cross pollination with an acorn squash variety.
The dark green skin, with an orange patch where the squash touched the
soil is characteristic of some acorn squash, and they also also have much harder skin.
And the taste of some of these squash reminded me of the flavour and texture of acorn squash,
though I have not tried Delicata squash before so I don’t know how it compares.
Normally different squash or pumpkin varieties are separated by considerable
distances when they are grown for seed saving, but perhaps in this case there
just was not enough distance and there was a fair amount of cross pollination.
Or perhaps even one bee picked up pollen from a male flower of an acorn squash, and flew a
long distance before it deposited the pollen on one female flower of a Delicata squash plant.
And that one flower produced one fruit containing many seeds, each one containing the genetics of
a different grain of pollen, and some of those seeds ended up in the seed packet that I bought.
Apparently a cross pollination like this does not produce a consistent or equal merge between the
two parent varieties, but instead produces a diverse range of genetic possibilities.
With each seed producing a different variation of a wide range of combinations between these
two parent plants, undoing years of effort by the plant breeders who created and refined this
variety to be consistent, and this seems to match what was produced by these 4 plants.
The smaller and darker squash from the one plant, are the most similar to an acorn squash,
with a similar dark green colour and an orange patch where it was touching the ground.
These squash are smaller than the others, with pear-like shape, and are slightly less ribbed
with significantly darker flesh inside, and the plants produced fewer squash than the others.
The next set is very different, including longer and more irregularly shaped squash with a deeper
yellow skin and dark green stripes or grooves that are typical of the Delicata variety,
but they also have more pronounced bumps on the surface.
The skin of these squash is extremely hard, much thicker than any other squash I have ever
come across, and very different from the thin edible skin of Delicata squash are famous for.
The third set seems to be most similar to the Delicata type,
with a fairly consistent long shape, size and colours that are typical of the variety.
The skin is quite thin and as far as I can tell the flesh and inner cavity are similar
to what I would expect from this variety, and I suspect that these squash came from a seed
that was not cross pollinated. The fourth set seemed fairly
similar to the original variety, with thin skin and similar colours.
But the flesh was a bit more pale and the squash were consistently bigger,
with a definite pear shape, rather than the consistent elongated shape of the variety.
And there was an interesting change in colour within the darker banding on the surface where
the stripes change from green to orange in a definite pattern across the surface of the squash.
It was only the seeds of the dark green squash from the first plant that seemed
mature, with the hard seed casing already developed, compared to the softer pliable
skin of the seeds from the other sets. And this faster maturing of this plant,
would be another divergence caused by the cross pollination.
And this possible later ripening of the other plants would indicate that perhaps this Delicata
variety is not so successful in this climate, especially if they were not able to produce mature
squash in a season that was unusually warm. But this is from a small sample size and I
would need to cut open a lot more of the squash to really compare them.
And the not so ripe squash from three of the plants will likely not taste as good
as they could, and may not have the characteristic sweet potato flavour
that the Delicata variety is well known for. I roasted a sample of each, and the darker green
skinned squash was definitely the best, with a richer flavour, and the skin was still thin
enough to eat, and the really hard skinned second type was not good at all, with very
little to actually eat with such a thick skin. The other two were nice enough, but I was not
overly impressed by the flavour of either of them, but I suspect that that was because they
were not ripe enough, and I didn’t get that much of a sweet potato flavour off of any of them.
So apart from the hard skinned squash, which I will probably just chop up and compost, all of
the others ones were edible and quite enjoyable, though I think I prefer the green skinned version.
Unfortunately, I still don’t know what the true Delicata variety is like,
and I cannot expect to be able to get any of the same variations that I got this year if
I grow the rest of the seed pack next year. Even if I save the seeds from the dark green
type that I liked, it will likely take a lot of space and years of controlled
backcross pollination to develop a new stable variety that consistently produced
squash similar to what this one plant produced. Keeping a variety stable, so that it produces
as expected year after year, apparently takes a lot of effort and very controlled pollination,
as well as removing any rogue plants that appear with different characteristics.
I came across this one other time a few years ago with a batch of carrot seed of a very
common variety from a mainstream supplier, where quite a few of the carrots that were produced
didn’t look, or taste like that variety. There was quite a range of colours and root
shapes, with some of them a very pale yellow that had a poor taste and more fibrous texture.
And other growers at the time were complaining of the same issue, growing seeds of the same carrot
variety from the same mainstream supplier, and I noticed similar issues with seeds for the same
variety that I bought several years later. I suspect in that case a few rogue plants
with undesirable characteristics were not spotted in the group of plants that were
used for seed saving, which can apparently happen with even every stable varieties.
In the case of the squash I grew this year, I suspect it was a simple cross pollination with
another variety of squash, and I unfortunately ended up with some of those problematic seeds.
So, unless I want to take on the role of a plant breeder,
this has been an interesting but disappointing accident,
which further delays my efforts to find another squash variety that I can rely on.
But I am glad that I planted four of these plants, because if I had only included it in the broader
variety trial, where I only grew one plant of each variety, I would not have noticed the issue.
I could have dismissed this Delicata variety based on one plant from cross pollinated seed,
and I wonder if any of the other squash varieties that I am growing could have similar issues.
This is all another cautionary tale about some of the issues with seed
saving and being able to get seeds that will produce what I want, that I can rely on.
If I was just growing for myself, this is not so much of an issue,
and could actually bene quite an interesting exploration,
but for commercial growers, cross pollinated seed can lead to a serious loss of income.
And this experience has caused me to realise that I need to be even more cautions with the
seed saving I do, especially with vegetables that rely on cross pollination by insects or wind.
An accidental cross with another variety, or failing to spot a plant that is off type,
could mean that I lose the special characteristics of the variety that I wanted to keep.
For next year I will need to find another supply of these Delicata squash seeds,
and hopefully this batch will produce what they are supposed to, and we are able to harvest lots
of really delicious squash that fully ripened in this climate, or find another variety that does.
I really don’t know if this cross pollination is an isolated issue with only a few seeds,
that a few people ended up with, or if it’s a much more widespread problem.
I don’t even know where the original seed comes from, as I bought it from a re-seller who simply
repackaged seed that they bought in bulk, probably from a larger supplier elsewhere in Europe.
This is another reason to focus some more on saving my own seeds, and to develop the skills
and procedures too ensure that the seeds that I save are true to the variety that I want to keep.
Which is an interesting thing to explore as part of this RED Gardens Project.
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