Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Hybrid surprises

No butternut squash this year, and that's my favorite squash. I was grieving until it dawned on me that it was actually possible to buy buttnernut squash at the grocery store or, even better, at the farmer's market. I never think of it as something to buy, just as something to grow.

The reason there's no butternut this year is that I'd forgotten about squash's proclivity to hybridize. We grew four varieties last year: butternut, spaghetti, yellow and zucchini. This spring, I threw the seeds of the last remaining butternut and spaghetti (which were no longer edible) in two different patches of the garden, and expected to get butternut and spaghetti plants. I've usually had pretty good luck throwing old butternuts into the compost heap and getting volunteer butternut plants.

Not this year. Instead, we have two patches of plants, each of which is a different hybrid of winter and summer squashes. I think we'll find at the end of the season that some of them are spaghetti squashes, and some are pretty obviously summer squashs, but I'm not seeing anything with the distinctive shape of a butternut.

Fortunately, we planted some of the yellow squash from commercial seeds, and they're growing true. We also have one zucchini plant, again from commercial seeds. We grew just one zuke intentionally this year; I'm finally -- after 50 years! -- learning my lesson about zucchini, since all I want is enough to make a single annual batch of zucchini bread or muffins.

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