On 5/29/2014 8:53 PM, Fran Farmer wrote:
On 29/05/2014 10:46 PM, Pat Kiewicz wrote:
Higgs Boson said:
On Tuesday, May 27, 2014 11:42:40 PM UTC-7, Fran Farmer wrote:
On 28/05/2014 12:23 AM, Moe DeLoughan wrote:

On 5/26/2014 11:30 PM, SteveB wrote:



And some gardeners prefer older seeds too - pumpkin is one seed that

I've been told a few times does better if the seed is older rather than

fresh.

That sounds wildly counter-intuitive. Did your interlocutors say why?

I've noticed that sometimes the plants that grow from my older squash
seeds
are more likely to skip the first flush of male flowers and get right
to producing
female flowers. Most particularly this seems to be true of the C. pepo
types
(zuchinni, summer squash, delicata, acorn).

That's interesting. I must pay more attention next time I plant older
seeds of the cucurbita family. One thing that does occur to me is that
in Australia what we call 'pumpkin', USians call 'winter squash' so
Higgs might still need to seek a definitive answer to his query.

I'm assuming that the gardeners who told me about older pumpkin seeds
found out what they were telling me based on experience just as you did
with your summer squash. One of these gardeners also told me that dog
poo was a superb fertiliser under lemon trees. Can't say I've ever been
tempted to try that one but since he was a gardener who worked for many
years at Government House then he should have had some knowledge and
skills.

Same, same Fran, squash and pumpkins are all basically squash.
Nomenclature is just a way to get your kids to eat pumpkin. G

We have numerous acorn squash seed that didn't compost well so one of
the beds has lots of squash growing. I baked a store bought acorn squash
and tossed the seeds in the composter. The seeds germinated in the
garden bed and are producing what looks like a Hubbard squash that has a
light green background and dark green stripes. Hybridization does that
to plants. Doesn't matter to us as squash is squash and might be a
pumpkin but it's all edible. Amazes the great grand kids when they see
something different and teaches them a small lesson about hybridization,
I hope.