Spots, Stripes and Unusual Squash Fruit

Spotted acorn squash, striped zucchini and warty pumpkins are sometimes found on volunteer plants growing in gardens and compost piles. No need to worry, most are edible but not always as tasty as the original variety.

So here is how it happens. Vine crops such as squash, pumpkins, melons and gourds produce separate male and female flowers. Each type of plant can only be pollinated by the same species.

Since summer squash, pumpkins, gourds and some winter squash are all the same species, they can pollinate each other. This doesn’t affect the fruit we harvest from seeds we purchase and plant. But the seeds of these, if cross pollinated, can grow into new plants and produce unusual fruit.

So if you save seeds, leave fruit in the garden or compost pile, the volunteer plants may produce unique fruit with characteristics of one or both of the parent plants.

A bit more information:  As you harvest these distinctively different fruits try tracking down their parents. Look at last year’s garden plan to see what closely related plants may have crossed to create these fun fruit.  If this is not the case, you may have a virus or other disease, causing this change in appearance.

Tags

squash pumpkins summer-squash winter-squash

Related

Audio

You Can Plant Cucumbers Next to Pumpkins

Video

Edible Flowers

Audio

National Acorn Squash Day

Video

Big Results from Small Gardens

Article

Keep Your Zucchini Plant Producing

Article

How to Tell When Squash are Ready to Harvest

Article

Drying Gourds

Article

Crops to Grow with Limited Sun

Article

Enormous Pumpkins

Article

Poor Fruiting on Gourd Plants

• « Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next »