Topic: Butternut Squash Seeds

[Karen Atkinson]

Has anyone ever used butternut squash seeds taken from a supermarket bought squash?

Seems a shame to  waste them ...

[Plot 18]

Trouble is you don't know if they have been cross pollinated, although unlikely in a farmers field full of the same thing, or if they are f1 variety. Either way you could get a squash that looks and/or tastes nothing like the one you started with.

If you've got room to spare and don't mind taking the chance, then go for it :D

[Beersmith]

Good advice from plot 18. I would risk it, although not every gamble pays off.

My biggest failed gamble was with shallots. Got some superb banana shallots down the supermarket, quite cheap too. Set them out at the same time as my other shallots, thinking I had saved a lot of money. About eight weeks later all the others were rooted and with strong green shoots. The supermarket ones simply sat there doing nothing. Two weeks later still nothing so I dug them up.

Research on line suggests they get treated with some type of inhibitor to avoid any root or top growth on the supermarket shelves as this would look unsightly and reduce sales. I felt a bit foolish but you cannot win them all. And lesson learned.

You will have an advantage in seeing how germination goes before planting out.

[BarriedaleNick]

I tried it once and got something awful - looked like a rotten rugby ball.  I don't have the space so I stick to bought seed.

[squeezyjohn]

Banana shallots will never successfully split and divide in the way that regular shallots do because they're really a variety of regular onion that's tall and thin, not a clump forming onion  They need to be grown from seed every year, and they're pretty easy, I grow a type called Zebrune.

[squeezyjohn]

As for the Butternut squash.  If they come from an F1 variety you're unlikely to get a fruit like the one it came from, and even if it is true breeding there is a chance it would have crossed with a different squash.

If you don't want to waste the seeds you could roast and eat them like pumpkin seeds.

[PondDragon]

There's also the problem that a bought squash will have been grown in a warmer climate and probably isn't one of the varieties best suited to the UK climate. The cost of new seeds is relatively small when compared to the amount of effort and garden space you'll devote to growing the plants, and if the plant doesn't fruit and ripen well because you've grown the wrong variety then the whole thing is just a huge waste of time.

[ancellsfarmer]

Good advice from plot 18. I would risk it, although not every gamble pays off.

My biggest failed gamble was with shallots. Got some superb banana shallots down the supermarket, quite cheap too. Set them out at the same time as my other shallots, thinking I had saved a lot of money. About eight weeks later all the others were rooted and with strong green shoots. The supermarket ones simply sat there doing nothing. Two weeks later still nothing so I dug them up.

Research on line suggests they get treated with some type of inhibitor to avoid any root or top growth on the supermarket shelves as this would look unsightly and reduce sales. I felt a bit foolish but you cannot win them all. And lesson learned.

You will have an advantage in seeing how germination goes before planting out.

Yes that is true, but , in my experience, if you soak them in rain water, they will swell and shed the outer skin. They then behave like shallots. The ones I have bought, from both T**sco ,and M**ris*ons# , are round shallots, produced by a grower called Brown , in Lincolnshire and cost this year# 99p for 300gm. 21 shallots about 30mm diameter. Previous 2 years ,most have produced7-8 shallots each, with only a couple gone to seed.

[Digeroo]

I grew some from supermarket seeds once grew my best ever butternut squash, oddly they contained no seed cavity, so were all edible, but I could not carry on the line.

[worldor]

That's exactly what I do now most years and always ok. Either shop ones or seed saved from ones I have grown.