Butternut Squash

jennyjelly

Afternoon all.

Anyone know if it's possible to grow butternut squash outdoors using the seeds from one bought in a supermarket, and if so do they come true? I just had a really delish one!

Sally_A

I'd be a bit too scared to try seeds from an imported variety. They need a long ripening period, so the ones in the UK seed catalogues have supposedly been bred for our climate.

Do you know the variety, maybe then by googling you can find out if it is a UK suited one, or an F1 variety.

Hunter, Harrier and Avalon are the ones I've tried, always managed to get a couple of each plant, but nothing as prolific as the seed catalogues promise me

jennyjelly

I've binned the label but as far as I remember it just said 'Organic Butternut' and the country of origin (didn't notice where it was though, doh!) but not which variety.

Maybe I'll just try a couple and see how they do - nothing to lose!

It's not that I have a burning desire to grow butternuts, just that I eat them all the time and this one was particularly scrummy.

eckythump

they will grow ut usually not true to type.
Its worth a try if you eat them anyway as they are so simple to grow and you may get lucky.
sometimes seed saving gives you an improvement on the variety.

foreign_correspondent

I cant get the bl00dy things to fruit anything worth eating whether using saved or bought seeds - I am having a go with an F1 variety this year, if that fails I will abandon all hope!

Primrose

It's apparently a well known fact that all winter squashes don't grow true to type if you grow them from saved seed, although you will probably get an acceptable fruit but not necessarily the same as the original fruit. The only problem with growing from seed from an overseas fruit (which it probably will have been at this time of year) is that it may have been a variety bred for a slightly different climate. I have grown Sweet Dumpling plants from saved seed and had a mixed result. I no longer grow winter squashes because they take up too much growing space in my garden and I usually had a frustrating wait for fruit to appear as all the first early ones seemed to wither and die off.

RAS

Hi

There are two main sorrts of pumpkins and squashes and plants from all varieties cross-pollenate happily. Having such large flower the attract a lot of insects to do this.

BUT

1. If you isolate the flower (a bit of old tight will do) before it opens and hand-pollenate it with a flower from the same variety, it will come true. That's how commercial seed companies do it, but on a larger scale.

2. If a commercial grower has a very large field all down to one variety, the ones in the middle will probably come true, as the pollen will be mainly belong to the same variety.

None of this applies however if the variety is an F1.

I was impressed with Waltham last year, which got very good crits in the trials - a Dig-in freebie. have set three for this year.