Oh that spaghetti squash

Ars800, you have some wonderful looking plants there, nice garden by the way. When we come close to the end of the growing season, or when I feel that I have a good enough amount of squashes, I take and cut off the growing tips of the runners. This allows the squashes that are already on the plant to mature, instead of more flowers (that will never in probably a million years ripen), to mature. It is getting on to the time when the plants will be slowing down growth, just happens. I have already cut off the tips of my growing vines, I have lots of squash that now can have the power of the plant put to ripening and growing them, not growing more redundant flowers and green growth. I would strongly suggest this. I also do this with my tomato plants. There won't be any more further upward growth in those either, as I know that the new flowers coming will never produce fruit. Not to be negative, but that is "intelligent" gardening.

About that powdery mildew. That comes when the nights become cool. It is just something that will inevitably happen to the curcurbits (curcurbitaceae), which are melons, squashes, cucumbers. That is one of the problems with gardening on the south coast (and many other places), the cool, moist, dewy nights. Those nights are other places too, but especially prominent on the coastal regions. You might try to spray with products, but I have always found that once that powdery mildew is there, it is there. Even more reason now to stop the forward growth of the plants to mature the ones that are already growing on the vine. I would sometimes even sacrifice the some of the small fruit that was growing so that the larger ones would have a chance to mature. Some strong advice from years of growing vegetables. I hope that you get lots of good squashes, but stop the growth as soon as you can, and get those fruit maturing!!! Have a wonderful and awesome day, CynthiaM.

CynthiaM that is such good advice! I will definitely do that with the tomato plants! Problem here with some of my squash plants they are just not producing like I believe they should be. I have read that it is a horrible year for them here on our part of the Island and this is my first year with a lot of squash plants so I am kinda new at them. When I went out this morning to let the chickens out I could not believe how cool it feels already. Also I swear on the 4 years I have lived in BC no summer has been like another one. I never seem to get it right! Thanks so much for the info every little bit gets absorbed, now if I could just find a cork and keep it all there for retrieval

XOX Monika

Hi CynthiaM,

Well, it has been sometime since I posted here, especially this thread. (Too much travelling and home "stuff")

The small wonder spaghetti squash are finally in! Well, actually a few weeks ago. I have to say, I was a little worried. When I finally brought them in they were still very green in colour and didn't seem like they would be ready. Several of them didn't finish because we had one or two cold nights and the seemed to stay at a small size, smaller than a hardball.

I did manage to harvest about 30 that I thought were still OK and they sounded a little hollow when I tapped on them, much better than a few weeks prior. We ate our first one the other day. I'm not sure if it was because it was still out for a frost and that set the sugars, or what happened, but it was probably one of the sweetest squashes I can remember eating. We just roasted it in the oven with a bit of oil, salt, and pepper and it tasted like we added sugar. I don't think it was quite as finished as it should have been, but I'm not complaining.

I pulled all the seeds out and they are drying and will continue to collect seeds from the rest of them. I also took a few pictures of the typical size of the squash. I put a few "ahem" items in for reference so you could get a better idea of size. The smaller one on the left is about 5" in diameter, just slightly larger than a typical softball and the larger is just over 5" wide by 6" long. I think the 6" long squash was one of the larger ones.

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Let me know if you are still interested and maybe PM me an address and I will send you some seeds after they have time to dry out a bit. Don't worry about sending an envelope, this one is one me.

Ars, I like the beer!! That is a good thing to show the size of the squash. My plants only produced about 8 this year in total. I had some cross breed squashes that were between a spaghetti/butternut squash, weird, but yummy in their own right. I loved to hear that the spaghetti squash was so sweet. I would not call my variety sweet, but still yummy as all get out. I will be the first to ask for you to send seed to me of your variety, I like the idea of the smaller size, and I still would plant the massive sized ones too, for those big family dinners. I don't think that cross pollination in squashes occurs in the first year (I think it comes if seeds get stuck in the garden and those grow and cross with the next year crop, but need to find out more, cause I really don't know). So I think I could plant those of your variety in the same patch as mine. Although, thinking about it as I type, I should probably grow them in separate areas, so I know which is which.

About the frost on the squash making it sweeter. I am wondering about that and will find an answer. I know for surely it changes the bitterness from Brussels sprouts to sugar sweet, but not sure if it works for squashes, maybe. I am thinking that this is just a lovely sweet squash.

Nice to see the pictures. Hats off to the squashes of this world!! Have a beautiful day, CynthiaM.