Allotments 4 All

Stupidly I did not take a pic, I will try and get one in the week. But I sowed something temptingly called "Mixed Squash". An Australian mix of various summer squash, including zucchini (Courgette), and yellow and green pattypan and button squashes. This plant looks like a courgette plant (bush), uniformly green leaves, but the fruit is unusual! Small snub nosed fruit, currently about 7 or 8 cm long, cylindrical and coloured a light but dull green and white stripes. Is it some kind of marrow??  ???  Or just an unusual zucchini?

Maybe Jeannine has an idea!  I was just wondering how big to let the fruit grow before picking, actually. I got 8 courgettes this morning! yellow and green - they have grown since teh weekend!!  :o :o

Are they all summer squash or is there any winters in there? XX Jeannine

Hmmm well I am pretty sure it is all summer squash. The pictures on the packet are of courgettes and what in Australia we call squash but which are actually button or pattypan squash (pattison). to be thruthful the last thing i saw that looked like that was a watermelon!!! but guess it couldn't be that :)

So you think all summer squash and the one you are unsure of is light  dull geen with white stripes.OK

Well courgettes are usually about the same diameter the whole of their length, rarely shaped, but the cocozelle group of courgettes are different.They are usually  fatter at the blossom end compared to the stem end.

So light green with whitish stripes ( not white rather a much paler green)would describe a Striato d' Italio in the immature stage,some of the  the lebanese courgettes are snub nosed and are pale green but the lighter  stripes are speckled,

Pictures woukd be good

XX Jeannine

Yes I really should have taken a picture. Perhaps this evening it will have grown and will already look different!! It really is an odd looking thing.
I googled a little and the closest I found was this:
but the shape is not right :)
That is a butternut.... hmmm hmmmm I did sow some Butternuts next to that. Could it possibly be that? Harriers... I didin't think Butternuts grew close to the vine like that???   
Ah it's just going to be one of those wait and see things!!!  Thing is I don't want to pick it mistaking it for summer zucchini if it is actually a pumpkin!!!

I went back on Saturday and dammit, still forgot a camera or phone! But I am really wondering if it is not a butternut!! It is not a courgette I think, as my daughter pointed out, it really has squash type leaves. And the fruit seems quite hard, not tender, which makes me tend towards a pumpkin. It is now getting rounder and a bit longer.
Is butternut a bush type though? The fruit is pretty close to the base. I have either Australian Butternuts or Harrier UK butternuts.

As usual the Yellow Parador courgettes are the best fruiters. I really recommend this variety,  I have great success with them, the fruit swell steadily, not too fast and the flesh is tender and sweet - only glitch, the skin is more sensitive to damage. But they get my thumbs up any day.

Harrier Butternut is a bush variety, Barbara Butternut is a striped one, looks like the one is the picture but it is  a viner XX Jeannine

Ok I am leaning for a Harrier then, Must have gotten mixed up somewhere along teh line. I won't pick the fruit just yet then!  The Australian butternuts are yellow ones so they don't look like those Barbara ones.