However, after a while I realised that planting them all together was a mistake as the plants grew through each other and I couldn't actually remember which was which. After a while though the various squash began to grow and I looked forward to harvesting them in the Autumn.
When Summer slowly drew to a close, I was a little perturbed that my squash did not really look much like pumpkins. Nor did they look much like butternut squash. Nevertheless, I just convinced myself that as they ripened they would look more like how they were supposed to. However, when I came to harvesting them last week I found that they had become these curious beasts:
These are clearly neither pumpkins or butternut squash. I checked the seed packets again and I had definitely sown what I thought I had so that wasn't the problem. After a couple of days pondering what had happened. Suddenly, it dawned on me that they had cross-pollinated!! It seems that I have inadvertently created a new type of squash. I have christened it a "butternut pumpkin". I used one of them last night in soup - I used a standard pumpkin soup recipe and it tastes pretty similar except with a slightly milder taste. I'm not sure what I will do with the rest - after all, in the recipe books do I look under "pumpkin" or "butternut squash"!?
4 comments:
Either one, I guess. I have never thought there was much difference between the two tastes.
Why not look under both recipes and combine the two. I have added butternut squash to currys before to great effect. You could also try making some chips out of them. Pumpkin chips are good. Or just try mashing it.
I have a marrow that has cross pollinated with my pumpkin...we have called it a 'Mumpkin'. It's long and orange on the outside but I haven't got around to cutting it open yet!
Too funny!
I tend to do a bit of trench composting, and more than once have had mystery squash volunteer out of the middle of another planting bed, self sowed from the compost bowl. Always an adventure!
I love it! That is too funny.
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