Author Topic: All squashed up  (Read 4830 times)

Digeroo

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Re: All squashed up
« Reply #20 on: December 01, 2017, 08:33:50 »
Possibly not.  They look quite solid.

On the subject of Tromba, my husband does not like them, he will eat the small butternut But I only managed to grow four.  I prefer the taste of the Tromba though some are more fibrous than others.  I will be interested in the dark skinned ones.  But at the moment they look as if they might last well.

Plot 18

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Re: All squashed up
« Reply #21 on: December 01, 2017, 09:16:13 »
IIRC large Blue Hubbard has lovely big seeds :)

Vinlander

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Re: All squashed up
« Reply #22 on: December 01, 2017, 10:14:03 »
It is quite interesting but if you look up pictures of Equadorean pumpkins they are not blue.

What about this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUIsn5nMRA0

Have you tried Cucurbita pepo Citrouille de Touraine is it supposed to have delicious huge seeds.  Available on ebay.

The blue one in the video is pretty close, but you imply it isn't from Ecuador (though obviously Spanish-speaking countries have better chances of seed-swaps than we do).

The Citrouille de Touraine seeds look almost flat except at the edges - making it very difficult to estimate the size of the kernel. The best Cerrano kernels were about 25 x 15 x 4mm thick.

That's a lot of meat for less work - large seeds are actually easier and quicker to shell, easier to use scissors on the problem ones,  and easier to grab the kernel with fat fingers like mine.

And in my opinion shelled seeds taste better than the naked ones in the shops (home grown naked ones aren't that much better). I suspect flavour was the first thing lost when the naked types were bred - though they are much improved by careful roasting and the oil is absolutely delicious - especially on tuna-rice salad.

Unfortunately toasted pumpkin seed oil was lost from supermarket shelves in the last recession and has never made it back - not even to Waitrose - it's crazy - the flavour is unique and well worth the £16 per litre at the time, whereas you can pay quadruple that for fancy olive oil that just tastes like olive oil - it's never more than 5% better than good (standard) Cretan Extra Virgin (£25 for 5L), and often worse.

Cheers.

With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

Digeroo

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Re: All squashed up
« Reply #23 on: December 01, 2017, 14:49:17 »
I once bought some fantastic pumpkin seeds from a carpark in Turkey.  All sorts of things were laid out on mats to dry.  Such as apple slices for tea etc,  So I was persuaded to buy some. Everything was very cheap and I give the guy enough for the tea seemed I was expected to haggle and since I did not he threw in the roasted pumpkin seeds, and The apple tea was amazing and the pumpkins delicious.  By the time I found out how lovely there were I was too far away to get some seeds to grow.  It was sold roasted you ate the hulls as well.   

Digeroo

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Re: All squashed up
« Reply #24 on: December 06, 2017, 15:01:12 »
The seeds of Citrouille de Touraine have arrived.  They are huge.  A good 2.5 cm.  Really odd shape with a curled rim.  Not sure the actual kernel is much bigger than a normal one.
Anyway it will be a bit of fun.   

I am hoping to get some Gete Okosomin Squash.  My daughter is due to go to USA in January.  So  hoping she can bring them back. 

I shall have to perfect hand pollination,



 

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