Kitchen Garden Forum

I'm growing a range squashes, courgettes and pumpkins this year. the blue hubbard has two fine big blue pumpkins, and one mutant.

Its got the kind of pointy end shape hubbards have, but more elongated, its dark green with blue hubbard coloured striped at the end and it has a very warty texture.

So, guesses please, was the other parent a courgette, a sugar dumpling or acorn squash or something else again...

and what should I do with it, its already a foot long, do i treat it like a normal pumpkin, leave it on the plant and eat it when its had time to ripen, do i remove it to save the plant wasting energy, or do I try picking and eating it now...

Hello Di
Sounds like an interesting squash! However although your squashes will have fertilised each other, it is the way of seeds and fruits that the fruit is always produced by the parent plant and only the seed that it contains is the result of any cross-fertilisation. I think that with your rogue squash, for some physical reason, it just hasn't developed properly. As far as wartiness goes, I've found that fruits will sometimes go warty where they've been left in contact with damp soil.

John

It sounds a bit like 'blue banana' that i am growing this year, from the real seed company. Thats topedo shaped, big and green and blue striped with a few warts.

mandy

Hi, and thanks to you both.
Going on what you say John, I'll assume it can be treated as a pumpkin, albeit a freaky one. The warty skin is all over, and couldn't be just because of damp ground.

Course its such a tangle of plants on the pumpkin patch that it is possible another plant has grown from something in the compost, though i don't think I grew blue hubbard last year.

Oh well, so long as it doesn't split open to reveal little green men...