Mixing up the maximas

You might remember that I threw all cucurbit seed-saving advice in the wind this year in embarking on something of a C. maxima landrace adventure. I've let the bees do their pollen dance and then saved and planted whatever crosses they've come up with. Since I garden in an allotment, and some of my neighbours grow winter squash as well, there's bound to be some cross-pollination with varieties that I've not selected myself. As I'm fairly picky about my winter squash, I should confess that this instilled some doubt in me at first. If I've understood the science behind this correctly, however, cucurbits are mostly pollinated by themselves or by neighbouring plants, so most of the genetic material should in fact come from within my own winter squash patch. And anyway, it's fun to try and mess things up a bit to see what happens.

 The squash are starting to mature now, which makes this an appropriate time for a first evaluation of what the bees have been up to last year. My main selection criteria, of course, will be taste, but based on growth habbit and appearance I think I can already draw some preliminary conclusions. Without further ado, here's this year's winter squashes. Let's start with the crosses:

Both of the above are a cross of Sweet Mama (F1) and an unknown paternal line. Because of the salmon-coloured spots on the squash on the left I would speculate that there's some Galeux d'Eysines genes involved (which is a pity since I didn't think it was very good, but that's the name of the game of course). Since it's a fairly round squash however, which is unlike either Sweet Mama or Galeux d'Eysines, there might be something else going on here as well. The squash on the right looks like it might be cross with Sweet Meat (because of the colour) and/or Marina di Chioggia (because of the pronounced ribbed structure).

This is another Sweet Mama (F1) cross. I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture but this is one big squash, at least half a meter in diameter. This poses a bit of a mystery since I didn't grow anything this big last year. The only variety that comes close is Galeux d'Eysines, which can, apparently, get quite large. Now genetics isn't quite as straightforward as that; you could very well cross two medium squashes and up with a larger one, but still, there's a likelihood that this is actually a cross with something from one of my neighbours. It's also definitely more yellow/orange than the Galeux d'Eysines I grew last year, though apparently there's a bit of colour variation in the latter as well. The stripes are probably from Sweet Mama (it shows up in quite a few of the crosses, could be a dominant allele?). I'm selecting for small to medium-sized squash, and I've yet to come across an orange-skinned squash that rivals the green or blue ones in taste, so it's unlikely I'll be saving seed from this monster. It looks impressive though.

This Burgess Buttercup cross more clearly includes some Galeux d'Eysines genes. It has the stripes and shape of Burgess Buttercup, and the skin colour, size and some of the warts of Galeux d'Eysines. I hope it inherited its eating quality from its mother...

More Sweet Mama offspring. This squash has a slight teardrop-shape, which makes me suspect that it might have crossed with a hubbard squash. I only grew Blue Ballet last year, which is a scaled-down hubbard, and this is one is quite a bit larger than that, but still, that would be my best guess.

Then there's also some less exciting crosses:

This looks pretty much like a Sweet Mama squash, but it's more vining in its growth habbit and perhaps a bit more squared than your average Sweet Mama, so it might actually have crossed with Burgess Buttercup. 

A Burgess Buttercup cross that looks exactly like a Burgess Buttercup, if perhaps slightly less block-ish. It probably crossed with itself.

This is a Green Hokkaido cross. Again, I fail to see the difference with the original Green Hokkaido at this point.

Finally, I'm also growing a bunch of named varieties this year, mostly to add some more (supposedly) excellent squashes to the maxima mix, and also simply because I seem to have an unquenchable thirst for trying new winter squash varieties. I've only got one plant of each of these:

To the left is Sibley, to the right Guatemalan Blue. Both are banana-type squashes with supposedly excellent eating quality. Guatemalan Blue is significantly larger than Sibley (it's probably about 40-50 cm long), but not nearly as productive (I've counted 4 medium-sized Sibley squash on the one vine that I have, which is quite good for a Maxima squash, at least in my garden)

   

Ah, Marina di Chioggia (left), one of my absolute favourite maximas so far (taste-wise) but frustratingly late to set fruit and mature. I can't give it up though, so I'm hoping to transfer some of its genes into my proto-landrace. To the right is Bon Bon (F1), a Buttercup-type that I'm quite impressed with so far. I'm not sure if it just happened to get the best and most fertile spot in the garden, or if this is really just a superior variety, but this is one healthy-looking and vigorous plant. If I'm not mistaken I've counted 7 decent-sized fruits on this one vine, which would make it by far the most productive maxima I've grown so far.

Hokkaido, from Real Seeds. This seems like a pretty standard orange Kabocha squash, though it was probably one of the earliest to vine and set fruit. The leaves on this plant have a silvery appearance to them, which is a bit unusual.

Sweet Meat Oregon Homestead or Blue Kuri. I'm growing both, and they seem similar enough for me to have forgotten taking a picture of the other squash. At least Sweet Meat, whichever of the two it turns out to be, seems to be doing much better than last year, so hopefully I'll have the opportunity to evaluate the fully-matured squash this time.    

Crown Prince, a squash with a royal reputation.

Blue de Hongrie. Not so much Blue as white though...

Buen Gusto de Horno. I'm not terribly impressed with this one so far, though I had read a lot of good things about it. This plant isn't particularly vigorous and it has only put out one fairly small squash. The taste better be out of this world!

 

And last, and perhaps also least, Uchiki Kuri, which put out two tiny squash and then decided to just sit there and enjoy the sun. I'm not sure things will work out between us. 

So far so good, perhaps I've inherited a bit more Galeux d'Eysines genetic material than I had bargained for, but all in all there's some interesting material here to work with. Needless to say I already look forward to the taste testing. I've also become intrigued with the genetics involved in all of this, so next season I'll probably try to make some controlled crosses just to play around a bit. Sweet Mama x Marina di Chioggia seems like an obvious choice; I was already planning on doing that this year but I didn't get around to it.

The winter squash patch, with some reluctant watermelons in front.
The dark green plant in the front row is Bon Bon.

Early spring musings - 2016

Time for the early spring musings - 2016 edition, also known as my Utopian elaborations on the coming season's gardening projects. As last year, early spring can here be interpreted rather euphemistically, seeing that the weather for the moment is still decisively wintery. But it's March, and March equals hope times plenty of ambition in my book. Without further ado, and in no particular order of appearance, here's a few of the projects that I intend to pursue in and around the garden this year:

 C. maxima landrace

Sweet Mama seed

Last year, I confessed to a 'slight' obsession with growing winter squash and elaborated on my intention of creating my own c. maxima landrace variety. I've eaten my way through most of the maxima stash by now and there's a definite pattern to be discerned. Sweet Mama is by far the most reliable and consistently delicious variety. Sweet Meat OH and Marina di Chioggia were a disappointment last year, which was surprising since Sweet Meat OH gets lavish comments all over the internet and Marina di Chioggia was one of my absolute favourite squashes the year before. The weather can probably be blamed here, since Sweet Mama is a short-season squash while the other two require a long growing season, which the chilly summer of 2015 failed to provide. As a result, those heavenly squashes that I ended up saving seed from were for the most part Sweet Mama's, with a couple of decent Green Hokkaido's and Burgess Buttercups making up the balance. Since this is the whole point of a landrace project, I'm proceeding as planned and will be growing out the F1's this year. In parallel though, I'll be making some controlled crosses as well, mostly to try and dehybridize Sweet Mama and to cross Sweet Mama with Marina di Chioggia, the idea here being that I wouldn't mind a shorter-season version of the latter. I also couldn't really restrain myself and I've bought a few (or, well, quite a lot...) new varieties to try out: Blue Kuri, Sibley, Blue Guatemala Banana, Bon Bon, Crown Prince, Buen Gusto de Horno, Blue de Hongarie.... Hmmm. I guess I'll never run out of new winter squash varieties to try...


The C. moschata project will be put on hold for the time being. I grew three moschata's last year: Longue de Nice, Long Island Cheese, and Waltham Butternut and I quite disliked the taste and texture of the first two varieties, though I'm not entirely sure they managed to mature fully. The butternuts were certainly not fully ripe when I picked them in early October, but after a few months on my attic they turned out to be a lot more tasty than I had expected. I think it would be worth pursuing a moschata breeding project here, but I simply don't have the space to do it this year. Something for the future...

Sweet potato

Nothing like starting sweet potato slips to indicate
the (imminent) arrival of spring!

Of the 37 sweet potato varieties that I trialed in 2015, most didn't produce anything worth keeping. A few did, however, so the sweet potato adventure continues into 2016. I'll attempt to be a bit more serious about producing seed this year, while also continuing to scour the planet in search of those more cold-tolerant varieties that simply have to be out there somewhere (Papua New Guinea, are you reading this?). The sweet potato gods were kind enough to provide me with some Georgia Jet (amongst others), so it will be exciting to see if it finally lives up to its reputation in my garden. I recently inspected the tubers that I had saved, and most of the larger ones made it through the winter fairly unscathed, despite extensive cutworm damage. Some of them already had tiny sprouts forming, so I've put them in water now, where they will sit happily for a few months and hopefully produce a good amount of slips by May or so. At the moment I'm counting on growing 10 different varieties this year, though knowing myself this number is likely to increase somewhat... More on this as sweet potato planting time is drawing near!


Skirret

Skirret. The roots get much more impressive
than depicted here though (img source)

Last year marked my first attempt at growing skirret (Sium sisarum), a perennial root vegetable in the Apiaceae family and one of the 'Lost Crops of the Europeans'. Introduced in Europe by the Romans from its Chinese homeland, skirret appears to have been quite popular in these regions until the 18th century or so, after which the potato's march across the continent pushed it into botanical oblivion. Having grown and tasted it, I would say it's high time for a skirret renaissance. The plants are hardy and form clusters of fairly thin white roots just below the surface, which can become quite large over the years (the root clusters that is, not the individual root 'fingers'). These can be left in the ground over the winter and harvested whenever the skirret cravings hit you. Essentially, you just dig up the plant when you need it, break off the most seductively looking roots, and replant the rest. Easy like skirret pie! The Dutch (suikerwortel) and Swedish (sockerrot) naming of the plant attests to its taste, which is sweet and very pleasant. In fact, skirret has soared rapidly in my vegetable hall of fame and became one of my absolute favourite vegetables last year, and I'm sure I haven't even begun to explore the full extent of its culinary delights. Peeling the pencil-sized roots can be a bit of a pain, but it's actually completely unnecessary since the peel does not interfere with the taste at all. Just scrub, cut and cook! Some reports mention that the roots can have woody cores, but I have not noticed this in any of the skirret I tasted last year.

There are some budding attempts underway to breed skirret varieties with fewer but thicker roots, which I'm hoping to make a modest contribution to. I've been getting seed from different places and also saved some of my own (skirret flowers every year and readily produces seed), so I will be growing out a lot of that and then start doing some selection. Of last year's plants I kept the ones that looked most promising, so it will be interesting to see how they do in their second year.


Oca

Another first for me last year was growing oca, a favourite amongst Andean tuber enthusiasts. Despite a fairly early frost I was quite happy with the result and I hope I can reproduce or improve upon the yield in 2016. I've been eating quite a lot of different oca's this winter and I must say they now rank quite highly in the aforementioned hall of fame. They're particularly good when baked in the oven. At some point it might be worth doing a more organized taste test to identify the tastiest and most starchy varieties, which definitely would be a criteria worth considering in any future breeding attempts. Anyway, I thought I already had quite a few different varieties last year, but then I went to visit Frank van Keirsbilck some time ago and I somehow - entirely inadvertedly, honestly! - came away with an additional 10 varieties. Together with the GOB trial that I will be participating in this year as well, and the grow-out of my own oca seeds, 2016 is promising to be a pretty oca-esque year. No complaints there!


The Great Legume Project

Some cute beans I'll be growing

Beans beans beans... With all the roots, tubers and winter squash that I am growing, I'm not usually at risk of suffering from carbohydrate shortage. I could definitely grow a bit more protein crops though, so for a while now I've been playing with the idea of upscaling my legume cultivation. Enter the 2016 Great Legume Project. This year's garden will have a large section dedicated to testing different legumes for dry seed consumption. Last year I already grew a Swedish lentil variety called 'Gotlandslins', but it mostly ended up feeding the local rabbit population and in the end I barely got more seed out of it than I had planted in the first place. Not entirely successful, in other words. I'll give this lentil variety another go this year, and I'm adding a bunch of different chickpea varieties (mostly from store-bought chickpeas, but also a black and orange variety from Adaptive Seeds in the US), different fava beans, dry bush beans, and a couple of Swedish heirloom 'gråärter' (grey peas), which apparently are called black peas or maple peas over yonder in Britain. I'm particularly excited about the chickpeas and the maple peas. The latter apparently were a northern European staple in the days of yore and are currently being promoted by some enthusiastic agriculturalists here as Sweden's answer to the chickpea. I'm quite fond of dried peas and they tend to feel comfy in somewhat colder climates, so I'm anticipating a bit of magic to happen between me and the peas this year. Chickpeas apparently are more cold-tolerant than I had thought (at least based on Carol Deppe's account in Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties) so perhaps the prospect of a homegrown hummus is not as far-off as I had feared. As to the dry beans, the plan is to grow a classical Swedish brown bean, a couple of other heirlooms, and a few colourful short-season US varieties. More on this trial as it happens!


The Modest Melon Project

Last autumn I received a small treasure in the mail, containing the seeds from a cross between 6 early watermelon varieties and the offspring of one early muskmelon (Blenheim orange). As far as melons go, I've only ever grown a 'babymelon' variety before, on plastic mulch, and though they did quite well the taste wasn't all that exciting so I never really bothered continuing with it. The arrival of these early, and actually good-tasting varieties is about to change all that. Since I don't have access to a greenhouse on my allotment, growing melons is definitely a challenge which means that my aims with this year's melon project are very modest. I'll be growing a few plants of each variety/cross and hopefully get at least a melon or two out of it. In fact I'll probably be ecstatic if I manage to haul as much as one ripe melon to safety before someone ends up stealing it. Then I'll save seed and repeat ad infinitum. I suppose you know where this is going..


Residual trials

And then, of course, there's everything else. Before this post turns into a monster, let me just finish by mentioning some of the new arrivals that I'm fairly enthusiastic about. Detailed descriptions to follow later!

- Hopniss (Apios americana): Also known as the American groundnut, Indian potato, or potato bean, however you like to call it. This a tuber-forming legume that was highly valued by native Americans, who knew a thing or two about valuable food crops. It's a perennial that apparently takes a few years to really give a worthwhile yield, so I'm not exactly expecting bumper harvests. Nevertheless, as you might have figured by now I find the prospect of growing new root crops pretty impossible to resist.

- Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius): New root crop no. 2, this is another Andean native, relative of the sunflower and the Jerusalem artichoke. It's high-yielding and supposedly fairly easy to grow. Produces large, inulin-rich tubers that are crunchy and sweet and can be eaten like a fruit.

- Quamash (Camassia quamash): New root crop no.3, a perennial, native of North America, also highly valued by the continent's pre-Columbian inhabitants. Quamash needs a couple of years to bulk up as well, so expect plenty of pictures of microscopic tubers.

- Crosne (Stachys affinis): Alright, I admit it, I'm mostly growing root crops, or at least those seem to the plants that made it onto this not very random shortlist. Perhaps I should work on countering that bias... I do like my greens, really. Anyway, crosne or Chinese artichoke is a perennial of the Lamiaceae, or mint family. It forms masses of small, worm-like tubers that are supposed to be delicious but a bit of a pain to clean. Worm-like tubers, anyone?

- Potato (S. tuberosum Group Phureja): I fear I might be becoming a potato snob. I recently caught myself ranting about the qualities of Arran Victory, which was one of last year's potato revelations for me and as I recently discovered is described by William Woys Weaver (in 100 Vegetables and Where They Came From) as the ultimate potato. Is this treading the potato equivalent of microbrew hipsterdom and coffee snobbism? Please stop me if at my next restaurant visit you find me complaining about the inferior potato variety that I was served. In any case, no, this won't be my first year growing potatoes, but it will be my first to grow Inca Bella, which is a potato variety of a completely different subgroup from the S. tuberosum group that the vast majority of European potato varieties derive from. It's supposed to be really, really delicious, so take note fellow potato heads.

- Turnip-rooted chervil (Chaerophyllum bulbosum): I don't know what it is with me and this plant, but I've yet to succeed in getting it to sprout for me at all. This will be the third year that I'm trying to grow it. I sowed the seeds in autumn and they have been outside the whole winter (they need stratification), so if I don't get anything now I'm _so_ blaming the seed company (again). Root chervil is supposed to be very delicate in taste, and sounds well worth the painstaking effort required in growing it (painstaking for me, at least). Just checked the pot, nothing sprouting yet...

A baby pig nut... hopefully!

- Pig nut (Bunium bulbocastanum): In Dutch this is called aardkastanje, and in Swedish jordkastanj, both of which literally translate as 'earth chestnut', since the taste of the tuber supposedly resembles that of sweet chestnuts. This is another perennial in the Apiaceae family, and another plant that would probably benefit from some selection (or more correctly, we would benefit from that..) since yields are purportedly very small. Pig nut is a pretty rare plant (at least in Belgium and the Netherlands) so I'm not entirely sure that the seed I have is actually B. bulbocastanum. Time will tell, at least I've got something sprouting in the pot I sowed with this.

Right, that's not all of it, but a big part at least. I know, I know: next time, more greens!

2015 winter squash harvest

C. maxima - Green Hokkaido

Harvest time! All of the C. maxima plants have succumbed to end-of-season downy mildew by now, stems on the fruits have corked up nicely, and skins have hardened and faded in colour, so last week it was time to bring in the majority of this year's winter squash. Most people will leave their winter squash out in the field as long as possible, but maxima squashes actually don't mind being harvested just a tad early, about 40-45 days after flowering. Since I've had some problems with theft in my allotment, I choose to err on the side of caution and bring in the winter squash when I feel they've matured. They're currently spread all over my living room so they can cure a bit, after which they're going to the (unheated) attic for long-term storage. Having them heaped together like that is always a very satisfying sight. Name me one other food that looks as beautiful!

C. maxima - Sweet Mama

Anyway, before I launch off into another winter squash rant, here is what this year's crop looks like. The first number is the amount of squash per variety, the number in brackets is the number of plants there were of each:

15 [8] Sweet Mama
3 [1] Burgess Buttercup
4 [4] Sweet Meat Oregon Homestead
2+1? [5] Marina di Chioggia
1 [1] Galeux d'Eysines
1 [1] Blue Ballet
1 [1] Green Hokkaido

C. maxima - Sweet Meat Oregon Homestead

That's 27 squash from 21 plants, which is ok but it could definitely be better. Even though I increased spacing from last year, I think the plants were still too close together, which tends to affect yields negatively. Especially against the fence, where the Marina di Chioggia were planted, the vines were just layered on top of each other. Next year I'll be increasing my spacing further to 2mx1m, hopefully this will make for healthier plants longer into autumn as well. Sweet Mama is a semi-bush variety that needs relatively little space, so it is no surprise that it did so well compared to the others. The +1? for Marina marks a squash that is still growing and that I'm not sure will mature in time. Of the other two Marina's, one somehow got detached from the vine before it was fully grown, so I baked it the other day. While it completely lacked the typical sweetness of a ripe Marina, the taste was surprisingly good. It was starchy yet flavourful, a bit nutty and at times tasted exactly like mashed potatoes with spinach (which is a fond childhood memory of mine, in case that analogy seemed a bit random). I had one more piece right out the fridge a few hours later and that reminded me of cheesecake, which I suppose was mostly due to the texture. Surprisingly good for an immature squash!

C. moschata - Longue de Nice

As I eat my way through the rest over the coming months, I'll be saving seed from the very best for next year. I'm already looking forward to growing them out... The C. moschata are still in the garden, they need somewhat longer to mature and in contrast to C. maxima should actually stay on the vine as long as possible. There's two Longue de Nice fruits that I believe are nearly mature, and then there are a bunch of Waltham Butternut and Long Island Cheese that only started flowering very late, so it's yet to be seen if I'll get a fully mature squash off either of those. The Longue de Nice was aborting a lot of fruit in the beginning of the season. Fruits would first grow very long (some grew to 40 cms) but the head (where the seed forms, to the left in the picture) would fail to bulk up, and then it would start rotting from the top down. I believe this was due to poor pollination (there were no male moschata flowers at that time), which might mean that the moschata didn't cross with the pepo after all (or they crossed but then aborted anyway). I'll save seed from any mature (and tasty) moschata that I get and trial it next year. If it's contaminated with C. pepo genes I'll drop it, otherwise I'll try to develop a C. moschata landrace as well.

I leave you with the biggest and most alien squash coming out of the garden this year:

C. maxima - Galeux d'Eysines

Ode to a (lot of) cucurbit

Let's do a little quiz. What food is highly nutritious, productive, easy to grow, stores for months at room temperature, and tastes fantastic? And what food is highly underrated, wasted in copious amounts during the holiday season, and often reduced to its decorative qualities? I guess this really isn't much of a challenge for most of you... It's the winter squash of course!

Before I go any further, I should probably declare my bias and confess to a rather serious obsession with growing winter squash. In fact, this blog might equally well have been titled 'the cucurbita gardener'. Winter squash is one of the first vegetables I started growing and I consistently dedicate a quarter of my allotment to it. Last year I had the ambition to grow one squash for every week of the year and very nearly made it. Needless to say I was in over my ears with squash and as the winter progressed my skin was taking on an orange hue from all the beta-carotene I was consuming (a harmless condition known as carotenosis - I can recommend it as a healthy alternative to sunbeds, for the few of you concerned with your winter tan). Why this overt squash fetishism, you might wonder? Because it's such a fantastic food of course! A great winter squash is a rich, sweet and filling food that makes a very satisfying dish all on its own, as well as being an excellent addition to stews, stir-fries and a basis for all kinds of odd baking experiments. Furthermore, I aim to eat out of my garden as much as possible and in that respect squash is one of the more grateful crops to grow. It is fairly pest and disease-free here in Europe (apart from powdery mildew, which tends to occur only towards the end of the seasons and therefore does not really hamper fruit production), it's a storage champion, it's easy to save seed from, and it's a fascinating and beautiful plant to hang around with in the garden. What's not to like? It's a real mystery to me why winter squash is not utilized more. I suppose one reason is that a lot of the varieties out there are really not worth eating. I've had my share of bland, watery, and stringy squash, and it's easy to see how such experience could make anyone into a lifelong squash-skeptic. But there's really no comparison between the latter and a great winter squash at optimal ripeness, so please don't dismiss the whole squash family on the basis of a few of its inferior offspring! I guess you get the point, as far as I'm concerned, the neglect of the winter squash as a staple vegetable is a culinary tragedy waiting to be corrected.

The squash patch. It's seriously overcrowded, which I think is harming my yield.
Lessons learned for next year.

Any-way.. This year I'm deepening my winter squash commitment and I'm choosing quality over quantity. I've been reading up on so-called 'landrace gardening' in the past months and I've become convinced that this is the way I want to go, first and foremost for the winter squash, and then, hopefully, for a lot of the other vegetables I'm growing as well. If the concept is as new to you as it was to me, let me attempt a very basic summary... Most people (including myself) tend to buy their vegetable seeds from seed companies or, if they do save their own seed, aim to preserve existing varieties. If you do this, then essentially this means that you are working with the plant characteristics that others have selected for you. This in turn means that the seeds you buy and/or save are from plants that might be adapted to growing conditions very different from your own, including different soils and soil fertility, different (micro-)climates, different disease and pest pressures, etc. This is a perfectly good way to garden, but if you think about it a bit, it could probably be improved upon. Species evolve and environments change (not in the least, unfortunately, the climate...), so it actually makes perfect sense to try and work with these evolutionary pressures rather than against them. This is what landrace gardening (in the scientific literature it seems to be called 'evolutionary plant breeding') tries to do. The idea is that you grow out as many different varieties as possible (to maximize genetic diversity), let all of these varieties cross freely, grow out large amounts of the resulting seed, and then continuously select for the most vigourous plants that fit your personal preferences. The result, after many generations, should be your very own locally-adapted (and evolving) variety with high genetic diversity, and in possession of any of the traits that you have chosen to prioritize. Sounds great, right? I thought so too, so I'm set on testing this out on my winter squash.

I'm growing two species this year, cucurbita moschata (6 plants) and cucurbita maxima (21 plants). There are also some reputedly good winter squash among the cucurbita pepo's (I'm yet to be convinced of this..) but I tend to prefer the maximas and anyway, a lot of my neighbours are growing summer squash (which generally is also c. pepo) and this would make open pollination a bit difficult. There's a chance that the moschatas too crossed with my summer squash (damn you promiscuous squash!), so that leaves me with the maximas to save seed from (c. maxima doesn't normally cross with c. pepo or c. moschata... in theory). I started off with 7 varieties and plan on adding more genetic diversity over the next generations. For this year I've got:

C. Maxima - Sweet Mama

Sweet Mama: a hybrid that I grew last year and that I found to taste fantastic. It's nutty, rich, sweet, medium dry, and yields pretty well. This is also a semi-bush type plant so it's quite economical space-wise. Fruits are about 1-2 kg and mature early.

Sweet Meat Oregon Homestead: I haven't grown this one before, but the reviews I read were uniformly positive so I had to include it. Bred by Carol Deppe for reliability and production, It's supposed to be a great 'homesteading' squash with thick, very dry, and very sweet flesh. They can weigh up to 10 kg. I found it to be a bit slow-going compared to the others, and it seems to have characteristically rough leaves.

C. Maxima - Marina di Chioggia

Marina di Chioggia: An Italian heirloom that I grew last year and that I loved for its taste, which again is deliciously nutty and rich. It's a very vigourous plant that will take over your garden if you let it. It yields one to two large squash (up to 10 kg) with a characteristic dark green, bumpy skin, almost like a savoy cabbage.

Burgess Buttercup: An old American classic, reputed for its taste. I grew a buttercup variety before and frankly wasn't that impressed with the taste, so I'm hoping this one is quite different. The squash are fairly small and somewhat cubical, weighing around 1 kg.

Green Hokkaido: Supposed to be the same as Blue Kuri. This is my first year growing this as well. Actually my initial plan was to just use a select few tried and tested varieties for the start of my landrace project but the lure of new and exciting squash was too much to resist... This seems to be your average kabocha-type squash (which is just to say that it has Japanese origins), which are probably my favourites so far. It's green, sweet, and supposedly fairly dry. Medium sized fruits, 1 tot 2 kg.

C. Maxima - Galeux d'Eysines

Galeux d'Eysines: First year attempt at this one as well. It grows big (up to 5 kg) orange squash with a high beta-carotene content that form peanut-like warts on the skin upon maturing. From what I can tell it's really quite a fascinating sight. I'm mostly growing it for its supposedly excellent eating quality though.

Blue Ballet: This is a smaller version of the Blue Hubbard squash. I've been growing Blue Hubbard the past two years just because it's such an intriguing squash, but I've abandonned it since they never really stored that well for me (somehow, despite its armoured appearance, the Blue Hubbard was always the first to show signs of spoilage). They also seem to deterioriate in eating quality quite quickly, plus the seed cavity on these is positively enormous, making for a fairly poor flesh to overall fruit ratio. I grew Blue Ballet last year and found it to be superious in nearly every aspect: it keeps longer, it tastes better, plus the skin is actually edible, which in my book is a big plus. It's a vigourous grower that is fairly early and weighs about 2-4 kg.

Sweet Mama with Buttercup on top

So where am I going with all this fantastic genome? As stated, I've let the bees do their happy buzzing and am eagerly awaiting the approaching harvest. Upon which I will be storing the squash for a month or so (this maximizes their sugar content) and then dutifully embark on the (very pleasant) task of tasting my way through the squash stash to find the chosen few that I will save seed from for next year. What I'm selecting for is a medium-sized squash that is as dry, nutty and richly sweet as possible, that is highly reliable under my growing conditions (this should pretty much select itself), has an edible skin and a small seed cavity, and that stores well into spring. Next year's progeny will then probably be a mixed bunch, some of which will undoubtebly be fairly bad eating, but some of which should bring together the best qualities of the above varieties and provide the basis for a true Malmö winter squash landrace. Exciting!

Early spring musings...

My windowsills are filling up with pots and seed potatoes, seed packets are scattered all over my table and the balcony is slowly being colonized by obscure roots. It must be that time of the year again! It’s starting to look a lot like spring here, or at least it feels close enough to get carried away dreaming about the coming growing season. Here’s a brief rundown of this year’s projects:

Sweet potato galore

    I’ve collected different sweet potato varieties over the past months, including quite a few that reportedly grow at 2000+ meters. My hope is that I will stumble across a few varieties that could (potentially) produce a worthwhile crop here in Sweden or, failing that, that I can get some plants to set seed with which to breed. Sweet potatoes don’t produce seeds easily, and the key (apart from some very un-Swedish climatic conditions, needless to say), seems to be genetic diversity, which I should be able to provide. There were 40+ varieties stored in my apartment at some point but quite a few of them succumbed to dry rot while I was out of the country, probably because storage temperatures dropped lower than I had anticipated, and sweet potatoes really hate cold storage. I guess I’ll just consider this as a first evolutionary pressure selecting for cold-tolerance! It’s yet to be seen how many of them I will get sprout successfully, but so far it’s 18. Whether I can make it warm and cozy enough for them long enough is an entirely different matter of course…

Mauka take two

    Last year’s mauka crop was not much to write home about. I’m not one to give up easily, especially after seeing what Frank Van Keirsbilck’s maukas look like, so I’ll be replanting the overwintered roots as well as some of the cuttings I took in November. The roots already started sprouting so if anything I’ll struggle to keep them under control until they can go into my garden. I’ve also got my hands on some rare mauka seeds, so if all goes well I’ll soon have some new varieties to play with! To be continued.

 Invasion of the Inca crops

This year will also mark my first year growing oca, mashua, ulluco and quinoa. If you think trying this many new crops all at once is pushing my luck a bit, you are probably correct. I am most excited about oca (Oxalis tuberosa), which in the Andes is second in importance only to potatoes and which amateur growers here in Europe generally seem to lavish with praise. As with most Andean crops, oca unfortunately needs short daylight hours and at higher latitudes therefore only starts producing tubers after the autumn equinox. People like Frank van Keirsbilck and Rhizowen are trying to rectify this injustice by breeding a daylight-neutral variety and if I manage to cajole my future crop into producing seed for me I will gladly join this guild of oca growers. Mashua (Tropaeolum tuberosum) and ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus) have received slightly less ravenous reviews but I’ll judge them when I’ve tried them. Most people these days are familiar with quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), that Andean staple food-gone-global that has become the darling of hipsters and foodies. Prices for quinoa have in recent years risen to such astronomical heights that those in the Andes who used to rely on the crop can no longer afford it, so what better thing to do than grow your own!  Quinoa is one of the few (pseudo-)grain crops that yields acceptably even on smaller scale, and I’ve collected some varieties that have been selected for northern, wet climates so as to minimize the (considerable) chances of end-of-season disappointments and depressions.

Oca in close up, it started sprouting spontaneously

Ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus) - this must be one of the most beautiful root vegetables out there

Landracing my wintersquash

In past years I’ve been on a quest to grow and sample the world’s variety of wintersquash. Honestly, this must be one of the most underappreciated crops out there. Incredibly easy to store, nutritious and delicious, it’s simply mind-boggling that the main purpose we’ve come up with for this amazing food crop is as a Halloween decoration! A staggering 95% of all pumpkins grown in the UK are used for carving and hollowing each year, amounting to enormous amounts of food waste. The humble pumpkin deserves so much more! It matters enormously which variety you grow though, and many do taste bland and uninteresting and frankly are of little culinary interest. But there's so many truly fantastic varieties that we could be growing instead.

Essentially the squash family is made up of three commonly eaten species: Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbita maxima, and Cucurbita moschata. C. pepo includes most of the varieties that we eat in the form of summersquash as well as what are traditionally referred to as pumpkins. It is these that are usually carved up for Halloween lanterns. C. maxima includes winter squash of various colours and sizes. They usually do quite well in temperate climates and are completely underutilized here in Europe. C. Moschata includes the well-known butternut varieties and is very productive but it tends to require more warmth than C. Maxima and is therefore more difficult to grow here in the north. After three years of squash growing I’ve come to realize that I’m a C. maxima kind of guy. The best maximas are smooth, incredibly rich in flavour, nutty and sweet and in my opinion far outshine even such C. pepo favourites as 'sweet dumpling' and 'delicata squash'. This is why this year I’m abandoning my C. pepo (except the summersquash varieties) and launching an attempt to create my own C. maxima landrace variety that should bring together the best of ones I've sampled.. I will be selecting for a medium-sized, dry-fleshed variety that is nutty and rich in taste, has edible skin and stores forever. More details soon! I’ve never really tried to grow C. moschata, so that’s on this year’s list as well.

Expansion of the perennial patch

A small section of my garden is currently dedicated to perennials and this area will be expanded/filled in more densely this year. For example, I’m once again trying to pre-grow cicily (Myrrhis odorata). In past years I’ve tried seeds from three different seed companies and for some reason I haven’t gotten a single seedling yet, despite scrupulously following stratification instructions. This year’s seeds have been outside the whole winter but no signs of life yet. I’ve also started various other perennial greens and herbs, including bunias orientalis, mountain mint (Pycnanthemum pilosum) and mitsuba (Cryptotaenia japonica), and I will be planting some perennial kale (Daubenton) and some yams!

And then, of course, there’s also a host of smaller projects, such as trialing a host of new greens and testing a variety of new potatoes, but I’ll spare the details of that for now.