Squash Report, June 2010

Once squash plants start to produce, they tend to keep producing quickly, until they "run out of steam" from producing so much fruit so fast. The colander above features my favorits variety, "Magda", a Lebanese or "Cousa" type light, club-shaped zucchini from France, plus several yellow squashes: Saffron Prolific - a shallow crook-neck, Butterstick - merging from straightneck to yellow zucchini, and Cougar - disease-resistant. Plus the zucchinis Kojac (few spines on plants) and Diplomat - a dark green variety. I don't seem to have any surviving Sweet Zuke, a club-shaped dark green zucchini from Burpee which often breaks when you pick it.

The yellow squash with the green end is from one of F's volunteer plants - looks like a child of Magda and Zephyr, a remarkable summer squash with some winter squash in its breeding. Your chances of getting squash of quality comparable to the parent plants from seeds taken from a mixed planting of summer squash are not good. Especially when you started with F1 hybrids. The F2 generation often produces some oddities. The bicolor squash in the photo, for example, has a larger seed cavity than its probable F1 parents. The doesn't mean you couldn't get something nice from deliberately crossing two open-pollinated varieties to get your own F1 hybrid.

I used most of the squash in this colander, plus some already in the house, to make two big skillets full of variations on this recipe. One included a diced Ancho (Poblano) pepper, ground red pepper and Pepper Jack cheese. The other included bacon and was topped with Colby/Jack cheese. I think I like a medium or sharp cheddar better than Colby/Jack for this recipe, but you can vary ingredients to taste.

Below is the row of squash we planted. Some of F's volunteers (not pictured) are already turning yellow and sickly, and are ready to be removed from the garden. They're scattered in odd places. He also planted winter squashes of unknown parentage. Good hosts for next year's crop of squash bugs. He seems devoted to growing them, though. Gives them to friends in the fall.

We already have big adult squash bugs mating, plus nymphs. They can get out of hand fast. Grateful we don't have squash vine borers or cucumber beetles.