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#1
05-07-2008, 02:43 AM
posted to rec.gardens.edible
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
I grow kabocha squash, the so-called Japanese pumpkins. The plants look
for all the world to me just like pumpkins, zuchini and probably several other squash type plants, and I can only tell what I'm growing for sure when the "fruits" start growing. In fact, I have a couple of plants right now that have me scratching my head and don't know what they are, really. Kabochas are rather like acorn squash, is my feeling. The meat is redder than pumpkin, somewhat denser, and definitely sweeter. I can use them in anything requiring pumpkin and also use them like acorn squash. They are very tasty plain, or with butter. They seem to thrive in conditions that work for pumpkins but tolerate somewhat cooler temperatures. I plant many seeds and I don't thin at all. Given the choice between quantity and size, I go for quantity. I'd rather have more plants growing smaller fruit then less plants growing large fruits. Each plant seems content to grow one "pumpkin" and then won't set further fruit, or if it does, the extra fruit are practically nothing, never getting bigger than a tennis ball. I figure I can grow more if I harvest the first setting fruits before the season nears an end and let another fruit set for each plant. That might double my crop, I figure. Well, here's my question: these kabochas keep very well and in fact I still have one or two from last season in the house. If I pick them way before the season is over, say even before they turn completely grey like they eventually do, will they keep as well as if I let them "cure completely" on the vine? At what point can I "safely" remove them from the vines? Dan |
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#2
05-07-2008, 11:52 AM
posted to rec.gardens.edible
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
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#3
05-07-2008, 06:05 PM
posted to rec.gardens.edible
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
On Sat, 05 Jul 2008 06:52:35 -0400, Pat Kiewicz
wrote: said: : :Each plant seems content to grow one "pumpkin" and then won't set :further fruit, or if it does, the extra fruit are practically nothing, :never getting bigger than a tennis ball. I figure I can grow more if I :harvest the first setting fruits before the season nears an end and let :another fruit set for each plant. That might double my crop, I figure. : :It seems the plants are aborting any beyond the first fruit set as beyond :their capacity to support. Squash will do that. : :Well, here's my question: these kabochas keep very well and in fact I :still have one or two from last season in the house. If I pick them way :before the season is over, say even before they turn completely grey :like they eventually do, will they keep as well as if I let them "cure :completely" on the vine? At what point can I "safely" remove them from :the vines? : :No, if you pick them early enough to leave time for more fruit, you will  nly get two inferior squash instead of one fantastic squash per plant,:and maybe not get that second squash at all. (The days grow short :quite rapidly at the end of the season.) : :For best keeping, the squash should be grown on the vine until it has :a tough rind and very hard stem. Generally, this isn't until the squash :has reached its proper varietal appearance. (One exception being some :varieties of ornamental pumpkins which are bred to color up early.) :Many winter squash will take on a silvery/powdery 'bloom' when they :are mature. : :For best flavor, squash should be left on the vine as long as possible, :and removed only when the vines have begun to die back and/or frosts :threaten. Thank you. This is just the response I hoped to get, i.e. a definitive answer by someone who knows the turf. : :"Tetsukabuta" is kabocha-type squash variety that is exceptionally  roductive per vine. It is a hybrid between two species of squash,:Cucurbita maxima and C. moschata, and should be grown along with :either a standard kabocha or buttercup (C. maxima) or a butternut :type (C. moschata) for best fruit set. Seeds available from Pinetree :Garden Seeds (in the Around the World Asian section) . : :I grow this every year, along with a butternut, and it definitely roduces multiple squashes per plant for me, where most other:large fruited squash produce no more than one (maybe two) per vine. If I get Tetsukabuta seeds and grow them, will the seeds of its squash produce more Tetsukabutas or do I need to always plant seeds provided by a seed provider? Being a hybrid, I believe this is a concern if not a certainty. I had an onion in the garden for several years, the seeds of which steadfastly refused to germinate. I finally destroyed the plant a couple of months ago in retaliation! The strip of earth it grew on is now fallow, but I figure I'll need onion seeds or sets for my next foray into onion growing, should I decide to resume it. I assume you are saying to grow Tetsukabuta "along with either a standard kabocha or buttercup (C. maxima) or a butternut type (C. moschata) for best fruit set" for pollination advantages? Will it render the Tetsukabuta's seeds viable and useful? I typically have pollination problems early in the season. Every year (I think there was only one exception in recent years) the first flowers are all female and there are no males to pollinate. As soon as a male appears (maybe 2 or more weeks later) I use a haiku brush to manually pollinate all females I can find. The first males are always small and nearly devoid of pollen, but subsequent males are progressively better endowed. This year I'm finding the bee population rather sparse and I've been continuing to manually pollinate all females just to be sure they are pollinated. This year one "standard" orange pumpkin has managed to sneak into the crop, and there are at least two plants the nature of which has me pretty much flumuxed. The fruits are almost kabocha-like, but are cream-white and slightly narrower near the stem. I searched my local market for verisimilitude and the only thing that looks similar (although not a perfect match) were (I think) butternut. I have no clue how they got into my garden. The largest of these (there are two diminutive ones) is the size of a good-sized cataloup or a small honeydew, and you can see it he http://fox302.com/userdata/Muse/file...terySquash.jpg As you can see, it's really nothing like a butternut now, and it's starting to show some color other than the original cream-white. As well, a few of my current kabochas look lighter in color than most of the others. I use my own home-produced compost, never buy butternut. Next year, however, my compost may be generating who-knows-what, because I've gotten into the habit of raiding my neighbors' green yard waste bins with my wheelbarrow. I have a very impressive heap of compost going already. The garden is going great guns this year but next year may be a real eye-popper. BTW, I'm in Berkeley, CA, the winters rarely reach freezing temperatures and weather warm enough to start growing summer vegetables occur sometime in March, early March if I'm lucky, last week if unlucky. Summers are moderate with occasional heat waves when it gets in the 90s. With luck, I get full sun all day, but there are always spates when the mornings are foggy and there are always a few days that remain cloudy. Dan |
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#4
05-07-2008, 06:17 PM
posted to rec.gardens.edible
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
I forgot to mention something concerning my problems getting early male
kabocha flowers. I developed a theory last summer that my kabochas were refusing to turn out male flowers early (I believe I posted the problem in this newsgroup a few years ago and people said it was not a problem one would expect) because I had been in the habit of always planting seeds from my own crops. I figured the plants were maybe (this is almost hypothetical) trying in their own way to hold out for pollen from a stand of squash other than my own in an attempt to escape the inbreeding they had been subjected to for a few years. Indulging this theory, I bought one decent sized kabocha from my local market this last winter and dried the seeds from it and mixed them with the others I planted early this March in hopes that at least the plants from the store-bought kabocha would send out male flowers early. It didn't seem to work. Dan |
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#5
06-07-2008, 12:03 PM
posted to rec.gardens.edible
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
said:
On Sat, 05 Jul 2008 06:52:35 -0400, Pat Kiewicz wrote: : :"Tetsukabuta" is kabocha-type squash variety that is exceptionally roductive per vine. It is a hybrid between two species of squash,:Cucurbita maxima and C. moschata, and should be grown along with :either a standard kabocha or buttercup (C. maxima) or a butternut :type (C. moschata) for best fruit set. Seeds available from Pinetree :Garden Seeds (in the Around the World Asian section) . : :I grow this every year, along with a butternut, and it definitely roduces multiple squashes per plant for me, where most other:large fruited squash produce no more than one (maybe two) per vine. If I get Tetsukabuta seeds and grow them, will the seeds of its squash produce more Tetsukabutas or do I need to always plant seeds provided by a seed provider? Being a hybrid, I believe this is a concern if not a certainty. I had an onion in the garden for several years, the seeds of which steadfastly refused to germinate. I finally destroyed the plant a couple of months ago in retaliation! The strip of earth it grew on is now fallow, but I figure I'll need onion seeds or sets for my next foray into onion growing, should I decide to resume it. No, you would need to repurchase seeds at intervals. I assume you are saying to grow Tetsukabuta "along with either a standard kabocha or buttercup (C. maxima) or a butternut type (C. moschata) for best fruit set" for pollination advantages? Will it render the Tetsukabuta's seeds viable and useful? I don't know how viable the next generation seeds would be. There's no telling what (if anything) would result from them. It occurs to me that the C. moschata parent of "Tetsukabuto" might be a squash very much like the variety "Black Futsu." Now, this one would breed true and could be seed saved (if you were growing it in isolation from other C. moschata squash). And it should be more productive than any C. maxima variety could dream of being...though perhaps a bit smaller than "Tetsubabuto," it looks like, with a slightly larger seed cavity. http://www.ghorganics.com/BlackFutsuSquash.htm http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1123/221 It's not carried by any of my favorite sources, but maybe I should order some seeds next year. I typically have pollination problems early in the season. Every year (I think there was only one exception in recent years) the first flowers are all female and there are no males to pollinate. As soon as a male appears (maybe 2 or more weeks later) I use a haiku brush to manually pollinate all females I can find. The first males are always small and nearly devoid of pollen, but subsequent males are progressively better endowed. This year I'm finding the bee population rather sparse and I've been continuing to manually pollinate all females just to be sure they are pollinated. I lose a lot of the first male flowers as tiny buds. It seems that they start forming at just about the time the starlings give their young ones the final boot, and the inexperienced birds tend to peck at what they think might be a bug (or something). Either that, or it's random vandalism after they tank up on mulberries. They snap at the first small zuchinnis and eggplants, too (the beak marks are pretty obvious on these). I'm lucky enough to have plenty of bees around once I do get flowers, though. This year one "standard" orange pumpkin has managed to sneak into the crop, and there are at least two plants the nature of which has me pretty much flumuxed. The fruits are almost kabocha-like, but are cream-white and slightly narrower near the stem. I searched my local market for verisimilitude and the only thing that looks similar (although not a perfect match) were (I think) butternut. I have no clue how they got into my garden. The largest of these (there are two diminutive ones) is the size of a good-sized cataloup or a small honeydew, and you can see it he http://fox302.com/userdata/Muse/file...terySquash.jpg No, that looks more like an unripe "Red Kuri" or one of the varieties they sell as "miniature Hubbard" squashes. Butternuts have very distinctly angular stems. There are jumbo "pumpkins" which are actually C. maxima squash (rather than being C. pepo). Maybe you've gotten pollen from something like that, or maybe even "Red Kuri" pollen accidentally brought in. I've gotten into the habit of raiding my neighbors' green yard waste bins with my wheelbarrow. I have a very impressive heap of compost going already. The garden is going great guns this year but next year may be a real eye-popper. I generally leave the summer-generated yard waste alone, but come autumn, we make multiple car trips to bring back leaves. Lots and lots and lots of leaves. BTW, I'm in Berkeley, CA, the winters rarely reach freezing temperatures and weather warm enough to start growing summer vegetables occur sometime in March, early March if I'm lucky, last week if unlucky. Summers are moderate with occasional heat waves when it gets in the 90s. With luck, I get full sun all day, but there are always spates when the mornings are foggy and there are always a few days that remain cloudy. I've been to Berkley, MI but never the similarly named and more famous California town. I will be in California next week at this time, going out with my mother to see her brother in Sacramento. (Been watching the air quality and fire stories with some concern.) -- Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast) After enlightenment, the laundry. |
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#6
08-07-2008, 05:43 PM
posted to rec.gardens.edible
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
On Sun, 06 Jul 2008 07:03:19 -0400, Pat Kiewicz
wrote: said: : : :On Sat, 05 Jul 2008 06:52:35 -0400, Pat Kiewicz wrote: :: ::"Tetsukabuta" is kabocha-type squash variety that is exceptionally : roductive per vine. It is a hybrid between two species of squash,::Cucurbita maxima and C. moschata, and should be grown along with ::either a standard kabocha or buttercup (C. maxima) or a butternut ::type (C. moschata) for best fruit set. Seeds available from Pinetree ::Garden Seeds (in the Around the World Asian section) . :: ::I grow this every year, along with a butternut, and it definitely : roduces multiple squashes per plant for me, where most other::large fruited squash produce no more than one (maybe two) per vine. : :If I get Tetsukabuta seeds and grow them, will the seeds of its squash :produce more Tetsukabutas or do I need to always plant seeds provided by :a seed provider? Being a hybrid, I believe this is a concern if not a :certainty. I had an onion in the garden for several years, the seeds of :which steadfastly refused to germinate. I finally destroyed the plant a :couple of months ago in retaliation! The strip of earth it grew on is :now fallow, but I figure I'll need onion seeds or sets for my next foray :into onion growing, should I decide to resume it. : :No, you would need to repurchase seeds at intervals. : :I assume you are saying to grow Tetsukabuta "along with :either a standard kabocha or buttercup (C. maxima) or a butternut :type (C. moschata) for best fruit set" for pollination advantages? Will :it render the Tetsukabuta's seeds viable and useful? : :I don't know how viable the next generation seeds would be. There's :no telling what (if anything) would result from them. : :It occurs to me that the C. moschata parent of "Tetsukabuto" might :be a squash very much like the variety "Black Futsu." Now, this one :would breed true and could be seed saved (if you were growing it :in isolation from other C. moschata squash). And it should be more roductive than any C. maxima variety could dream of being...thougherhaps a bit smaller than "Tetsubabuto," it looks like, with a slightly:larger seed cavity. As I said, more productive in terms or greater quantity albeit smaller size/weight is preferable for me, cooking typically for myself. A big kabocha is likely halved and the other half saved for perhaps two weeks in the refrigerator (the largest I had last year were a couple in excess of 3 lb.). That has seemed to work out OK, but of course, it's better to use the whole thing at once. So, slightly smaller isn't necessary a knock on a varietal. : :http://www.ghorganics.com/BlackFutsuSquash.htm These people charge $6 for looks like 12 - 25 or so seeds, before shipping. Black Futsu. :http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1123/221 Here the seeds are $2, before shipping. I can't tell how many seeds would be included. Have you done business with them? : :It's not carried by any of my favorite sources, but maybe I should order :some seeds next year. : :I typically have pollination problems early in the season. Every year (I :think there was only one exception in recent years) the first flowers :are all female and there are no males to pollinate. As soon as a male :appears (maybe 2 or more weeks later) I use a haiku brush to manually :pollinate all females I can find. The first males are always small and :nearly devoid of pollen, but subsequent males are progressively better :endowed. This year I'm finding the bee population rather sparse and I've :been continuing to manually pollinate all females just to be sure they :are pollinated. : :I lose a lot of the first male flowers as tiny buds. It seems that they start :forming at just about the time the starlings give their young ones the :final boot, and the inexperienced birds tend to peck at what they think :might be a bug (or something). Either that, or it's random vandalism :after they tank up on mulberries. They snap at the first small zuchinnis :and eggplants, too (the beak marks are pretty obvious on these). I don't remember ever having a bird problem with my squash (they attack my plums with gusto, however they are so plentiful it doesn't concern me). Possibly a few seedlings have been nipped, but most often that's caused by varmints residing in the soil, presumably earwigs, sowbugs or perhaps even slugs. I don't know if I should or shouldn't, but I typically apply a light sprinkling of environmentally friendly snail/slug pellets and also a light sprinkling of now-illegal (to sell, I suppose) diazinon, which I still have. That seems to deter whatever is eating my small seedlings. Once they get past a couple weeks old, they seem to hold their own against whatever and I don't apply anything thereafter. The containers would have me believe that there's no toxic penalty to pay for these applications. : :I'm lucky enough to have plenty of bees around once I do get flowers, :though. A variety of insects have by now staked out my squash, including at least a couple varieties of bees, but the female flowers are so few and far between at this point (the plants that have done anything are already set with fruit and aren't even producing female flowers for the most part, and even if they do, they are unlikely to set) that I still go out each morning and personally pollinate any female flowers I can find. There's only been 2-3 the last week. : :This year one "standard" orange pumpkin has managed to sneak into the :crop, and there are at least two plants the nature of which has me :pretty much flumuxed. The fruits are almost kabocha-like, but are :cream-white and slightly narrower near the stem. I searched my local :market for verisimilitude and the only thing that looks similar :(although not a perfect match) were (I think) butternut. I have no clue :how they got into my garden. The largest of these (there are two :diminutive ones) is the size of a good-sized cataloup or a small :honeydew, and you can see it he : :http://fox302.com/userdata/Muse/file...terySquash.jpg : :No, that looks more like an unripe "Red Kuri" or one of the varieties :they sell as "miniature Hubbard" squashes. Butternuts have very :distinctly angular stems. : :There are jumbo "pumpkins" which are actually C. maxima squash  rather than being C. pepo). Maybe you've gotten pollen from something :like that, or maybe even "Red Kuri" pollen accidentally brought in. : :I've gotten into the habit of raiding my neighbors' green yard waste :bins with my wheelbarrow. I have a very impressive heap of compost going :already. The garden is going great guns this year but next year may be a :real eye-popper. : :I generally leave the summer-generated yard waste alone, but come :autumn, we make multiple car trips to bring back leaves. Lots and :lots and lots of leaves. I don't know where to get leaves, although I have noticed in the past accumulations on the local streets come autumn. Other than random clippings from this and that on my own property, I've relied on the occasional raid of someone else's cast-off yard waste until I hit on the idea this year of checking out the green bins on my block's sidewalk each Wednesday morning. When I spot bins (lifting lids) that look acceptable, I truck out my wheel barrow. I know I get a lot of weed seeds, but hope that they will be destroyed in the composting process. I also hope that they haven't been treated with pesticides. In most cases, that would seem doubtful. Of course, I stay away from anything that seems problematical. For the most part it seems to be wildly growing random plants (i.e. "weeds") growing in people's back yards. I don't recall smelling anything that smacked of toxicity. : :BTW, I'm in Berkeley, CA, the winters rarely reach freezing temperatures :and weather warm enough to start growing summer vegetables occur :sometime in March, early March if I'm lucky, last week if unlucky. :Summers are moderate with occasional heat waves when it gets in the 90s. :With luck, I get full sun all day, but there are always spates when the :mornings are foggy and there are always a few days that remain cloudy. : :I've been to Berkley, MI but never the similarly named and more famous :California town. I feel that Berkeley's fame has gone to the residents' heads and made them giddy in some measure. I'm sure it's not universally true, but many of the things that go on here and continue to keep the town (130,000 population, tops I think) in the nation's and world's news are partly the product of some people's appetite for fame moreso than their sincere devotion to legitimate issues, is my feeling sometimes. That said, a list of some of the forward looking positions taken here is rather impressive. That's with the luxury of hindsight, of course. : :I will be in California next week at this time, going out with my mother :to see her brother in Sacramento. (Been watching the air quality and :fire stories with some concern.) There are still over 300 fires or so burning in Northern California, and air quality is still an issue in many places. The air has cleared where I am, thankfully. Two weeks ago and for almost a week thereafter, the air was so bad here that even when it was "sunny" it seemed like a 3/4 eclipse of the sun was in effect. 1/2 the time it was simply cloudy, to boot, and I despaired somewhat for my poor squash and tomatoes. Well, they are fine, of course, and the sun has returned in full force. It will be hot today through Thursday here (93ish, is the projection), and rather hotter (probably over 100, maybe 105?) in Sacramento. However, I'd expect that over the weekend, 100 during the day there can be expected. Hopefully you will be protected by AC! I stayed in Sacramento for around a week when I was 16-17, probably in June or July and the one thing I was impressed with was the unremitting heat of the days. We had no AC, though. Dan |
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#7
08-07-2008, 08:57 PM
posted to rec.gardens.edible
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
On Jul 5, 1:17*pm, Dan Musicant ) wrote:
I forgot to mention something concerning my problems getting early male kabocha flowers. I developed a theory last summer that my kabochas were refusing to turn out male flowers early (I believe I posted the problem in this newsgroup a few years ago and people said it was not a problem one would expect) because I had been in the habit of always planting seeds from my own crops. I figured the plants were maybe (this is almost hypothetical) trying in their own way to hold out for pollen from a stand of squash other than my own in an attempt to escape the inbreeding they had been subjected to for a few years. Indulging this theory, I bought one decent sized kabocha from my local market this last winter and dried the seeds from it and mixed them with the others I planted early this March in hopes that at least the plants from the store-bought kabocha would send out male flowers early. It didn't seem to work. Dan Dan. If you planted seed from a storebought kabocha type. It could be a cross with any other C. maxima, within a bees flight path. Unless the planter had a pure field, expect cross pollinated squash. There are a bout dozen different versions of kabocha. The Tetsukabuta is a special interspecies cross by Sakata. The process of making an interspecies cross is pretty complicated and patented. It requires modification of the pollen from one species to be accepted by the other. The result is considered to sterile, but I have not tried it. As far as I know that is the only one available in the US although Sakata has named several others. |
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#9
09-07-2008, 11:32 AM
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
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#10
09-07-2008, 06:22 PM
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:20:15 -0400, Pat Kiewicz
wrote: :Sacramento is flirting with record highs nearing 110 today, according :to the Weather Channel. I hear it's a dry heat, though...we've been pretty :steam-bathish here. The sweat pours off but has nowhere to evaporate to. : :We've had so much rain that I don't think I've had to water anything other :than pots and initial transplants for the last month. That's really unusual. I watched the news' take on the weather last night but they didn't announce Sacto. I figured somewhere in the high 100s. Indeed communities only 20-25 miles from me were hitting 110 and above in some cases. It only reached 83 here, according to my outdoor digital thermometer, which features a memory! I was rather surprised. I think the weekend will see some significant improvement in inland weather in Northern California. It will still be hot there, of course. That's the norm. Dry, yes. Humid seriously hot weather is pretty much a rarity in MY experience in CA. When it's hot like this I water my squash in the morning as soon as the sun is prevalent enough to evaporate the water on the leaves. I don't want the leaves to have any more wetness than necessary for any longer than necessary due to the fungus problems I always have on the squash leaves toward the end of the season. I've been treating the leaves with a solution of baking soda (sprayed on with a hand sprayer) when I start noticing fungus on the leaves, and that seems to control the fungus pretty well. I also have sulphur, but figure baking soda's probably healthier to be applying to the plants. Seems like we've had little more than enough cumulative rain here since February to even get your clothes wet! My tomatoes tolerate occasional watering far better than the squash. Even when the root zone is very wet, the squash leaves droop some in full sunshine for many of the plants. This may not threaten the health of the plants but obviously they are going to grow better if the leaves don't droop and absorb accordingly more sunshine. The plants seem to do better when growing in a bog, as long as the fungus is kept at bay. Dan |
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#11
09-07-2008, 06:35 PM
posted to rec.gardens.edible
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 06:32:07 -0400, Pat Kiewicz
wrote: said: : :The Tetsukabuta is a special interspecies cross by Sakata. The process :of making an interspecies cross is pretty complicated and patented. It :requires modification of the pollen from one species to be accepted by :the other. The result is considered to sterile, but I have not tried :it. As far as I know that is the only one available in the US although :Sakata has named several others. : :All I can say is that it's a beautiful squash, and very productive even in :the face of squash vine borers. I supposed it gets that trait from its :C. moschata parent, as C. maxima squash tend to be quite vulnerable. That's why I grow butternuts as a pollinator for them.): :Some of the seed from the harvest looks plump enough to be viable, but :a lot of it looks... puny might be the proper word.. I've never been :tempted to save any seeds to see if they sprout or not. I think I shall have to try Tetsukabuta at least one season (probably nexe!), and also Black Futsu. I don't recall ever having problems with pests in my squash/pumpkin growing adventures. I used to grow pumpkins exclusively. I actually got into kabocha cultivation completely by accident. One year a kabocha came up in my pumpkin patch, perhaps more than one. This was a few years ago. I hadn't a clue what I was growing and when I spotted what looked like the same squash at my local very well produce stocked market, I asked what it was and was told "kabocha." I've grown them exclusively ever since, preferring them very much to pumpkins, which is (I think) what you are referring to when you speak of C. Maximus, right? Even so, I often find a pumpkin or two in my patch, and there is one beautiful specimen in my garden at present, about the size of a volley ball. In order to control what comes up next year, assuming I purchase seeds online, I'm obviously going to have to stop tossing the seeds and pulp from my squash into my compost. I get volunteers in my tomatoes, basil and celery (which I pull). No doubt, I currently also get volunteers among my squash, but can't determine which plants are volunteers. Dan |
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#12
10-07-2008, 09:44 AM
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
On Sat, 05 Jul 2008 06:52:35 -0400, Pat Kiewicz
wrote: :No, if you pick them early enough to leave time for more fruit, you will nly get two inferior squash instead of one fantastic squash per plant,:and maybe not get that second squash at all. (The days grow short :quite rapidly at the end of the season.) : :For best keeping, the squash should be grown on the vine until it has :a tough rind and very hard stem. Generally, this isn't until the squash :has reached its proper varietal appearance. (One exception being some :varieties of ornamental pumpkins which are bred to color up early.) :Many winter squash will take on a silvery/powdery 'bloom' when they :are mature. : :For best flavor, squash should be left on the vine as long as possible, :and removed only when the vines have begun to die back and/or frosts :threaten. I cooked my very last kabocha last night. It was about the size of a small grapefruit. By appearance it hadn't matured completely. It was still quite brown, rather than the grey typical of a fruit that has remained on the plant "indefinitely." However, it felt completely tight and ROCK-HARD all over, completely devoid of blemishes! My experience from last year was that 1/2 the fruits were cooked because they had begun to show some kind of degradation as though if they weren't consumed soon, they would rot in short order. This one particular squash I partly ate last night (it's in a vege stir fry I am keeping refrigerated for occasional use) was a beautiful orange complexion meat-wise, unusually so. It seems inferior in no way except perhaps the flavor. Indeed, if it were allowed to completely mature on the vine, it might taste a lot better. My yardstick last year for picking was my judgment that the squash were no longer getting nutrients and water through their stems. IOW, if I saw no juice in the cut stem after removing the fruit, I decided that perhaps the fruit had reached a state in which it would be no detriment to remove it and thereby I could let the plant set another fruit. Dan |
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10-07-2008, 11:18 AM
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
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10-07-2008, 11:20 AM
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
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11-07-2008, 01:34 AM
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Growing Kabochas - When to pick them?
On Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:20:41 -0400, Pat Kiewicz
wrote: said: : : :On Sat, 05 Jul 2008 06:52:35 -0400, Pat Kiewicz wrote: : ::No, if you pick them early enough to leave time for more fruit, you will : nly get two inferior squash instead of one fantastic squash per plant,::and maybe not get that second squash at all. (The days grow short ::quite rapidly at the end of the season.) :: ::For best keeping, the squash should be grown on the vine until it has ::a tough rind and very hard stem. Generally, this isn't until the squash ::has reached its proper varietal appearance. (One exception being some ::varieties of ornamental pumpkins which are bred to color up early.) ::Many winter squash will take on a silvery/powdery 'bloom' when they ::are mature. :: ::For best flavor, squash should be left on the vine as long as possible, ::and removed only when the vines have begun to die back and/or frosts ::threaten. : :I cooked my very last kabocha last night. It was about the size of a :small grapefruit. By appearance it hadn't matured completely. It was :still quite brown, rather than the grey typical of a fruit that has :remained on the plant "indefinitely." However, it felt completely tight :and ROCK-HARD all over, completely devoid of blemishes! My experience :from last year was that 1/2 the fruits were cooked because they had :begun to show some kind of degradation as though if they weren't :consumed soon, they would rot in short order. : :I have to keep an eye on my stored squash for that. But since I like :to used my squash mostly for things like soup or in waffles, I usually rocess them into a puree and freeze them.I have a wonderful pumpkin soup recipe I've made many many times: - - - - Moroccan Pumpkin Soup: 2 cups cooked chickpeas (1 cup dried, washed and soaked overnight and then cooked 1 1/4 hours, or canned) 3 Tbls olive or vegetable oil 2 leeks (white and light green part only) or 2 large onions, chopped (about 1 1/2 cups) 8 cups of broth (or bullion) 2 1/2 lbs pumpkin, about 4 cups (after mashing), baked, parboiled or canned. (Bake or parboil until soft, pumpkin or other winter squash. Seed, halve and bake cut side down or peel, seed, chop and parboil, until soft) 2-4 Tbls sugar or honey 2 tsp ground cinnamon, or 1 (3 inch) cinnamon stick 1/8 tsp ground allspice (or nutmeg, or a pinch of ground cloves) about 2 tsp salt ground black pepper to taste Heat the oil in a large saucepan over med-low heat. Add the leeks or onions and saute until soft and translucent, 5 to 10 min. Combine the broth, pumpkin, chickpeas, sugar, spices, salt and pepper and heat until boiling point. Reduce heat to low, and simmer. If using the cinnamon stick, simmer for 15 minutes and discard stick. Check for seasonings. Combine with cooked leeks or onions. Serves 8. - - - - I think I may have put pumpkin in waffles a time or two, puree, of course. I do have a fair amount of frozen pumpkin and kabocha puree (cooked, of course) in the freezer. The recipies I usually use it in are the above soup recipe and this amazing recipe: - - - - Pumpkin Cake 1 29 oz. can pumpkin (or use fresh) 12 oz. evaporated milk (one can). For this, you can substitute 11 oz. water and 1 cup non-fat milk powder. 4 eggs 1 cup sugar (brown is OK too) 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg 1 teaspoon allspice ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 package Duncan Hines Cake mix, yellow (other brand should work OK) 1 cup melted butter 1 cup chopped nuts (I always use pecans, but walnuts might work well) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- I generally make a 1/2 recipe. Mix first 7 ingredients well. Pour into 9 x 13 pan (greased with towel and margarine). Sprinkle dry cake mix on top of mixture, sprinkle nuts over cake, sprinkle butter over cake. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour, or until cake tester comes out clean. - - - - : :The longest a squash I had grew has kept (before rotting) was 1-1/2 :years! It was a large C. moshata (not a necked variety, a flat round :type that my daughter nick-named "butt pumpkin" because it looked :like a circle of derrieres). I let it go out of curiosity. It didn't dry out, :it rotted in the end. The one I cooked last night may well have been at 11 months, possibly longer, and looked and felt for all the world like it was just picked. It wouldn't surprise me if it would have lasted another 6 months to a year. I ate it because I was out of squash otherwise. : : My yardstick last year for picking was my judgment that the squash were :no longer getting nutrients and water through their stems. IOW, if I saw :no juice in the cut stem after removing the fruit, I decided that :perhaps the fruit had reached a state in which it would be no detriment :to remove it and thereby I could let the plant set another fruit. : : :Even once harvested, squash should still be left in a warm, sunny lace to "cure" for a week or so. Something not generally available:at my place in late October. Here, it's common to have warm weather in October. It's generally not until November that cold days start being pretty ordinary. BTW, it looks like you will have perhaps better weather over the weekend in Sacto than normal. 90 degrees, is what they said yesterday for inland locations. Dan |
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