I've been doing a number of variety trials over the past few years to try to find varieties
of different vegetables that do well in our climate and context. And I found that these
variety trials are also good at exploring the range of different types, growth habits,
and potential uses that are available, which also helps me to better understand how to
grow these vegetable plants. As part of this, I've been doing trials of a large number of
different squash and pumpkin varieties, to try to find ones that do well in our cool climate,
but I found it difficult to do a trial like this because the plants tend to be so big,
and I don't have enough space for all the varieties that I want to try, And there is
also considerable difference in the vigor or the size that the plants will naturally grow to which,
also impacts the trial, as one plant could easily overwhelm the adjacent plants of different
varieties. So these plantings of different varieties probably ended up being more of a
competition than a trial, which in some contexts might be useful, but in many situations in the
gardens, I don't necessarily want to grow the variety that can simply out compete the others.
For quite a few years I mainly grew one hybrid variety of squash called Crown Prince,
which had been recommended by a few people as an appropriate variety to grow in the cool maritime
climate that we have here in Ireland. And I found that this variety generally produced a reasonably
good yield, of medium sized squash, that lasted for a long time, and had a dense flesh that was
very flavourful. But I didn't really know how it compared to others, and I also wanted to
grow a wider range of different types of squash, with different sizes shapes and flavours. So I
began collecting seeds from a range of different suppliers, and last year I grew over 30 varieties
of squash and pumpkins in two large plots, with mixed success. These areas of ground were not in
great shape, or very fertile, and as expected some varieties did much better than others. I
learned a lot about the different types sizes and flavours of squash and pumpkins that are
available, and I was able to identify a range of different varieties that seemed promising.
This past year I decided to plant most of these varieties again in my older polytunnel,
as a variety trial in the warmer conditions of this microclimate,
together with sweet corn and climbing beans. This was an exploration of growing the Three Sisters,
a guild or companion planting of corn, squash and beans that was used by some indigenous
peoples of North America, which I wasn't sure was going to be successful in this climate,
even in the polytunnel. I wasn't sure what density of planting was appropriate in this space,
especially with the 30 squash and pumpkin plants, but by the beginning of August this polytunnel
was very crowded, and it was obvious that there was too many plants of all three vegetables. I
could see that some of the squash varieties were growing much more vigorously than the others,
and some varieties became badly affected by downey mildew and other issues, but because
of the abundant growth, it was difficult to get into the space to properly evaluate all
the different varieties as they grew. And I became aware that there wasn't a lot of squash
and pumpkin fruit forming on the vines, even when I searched underneath all of the leaves,
and I wasn't sure whether this was a pollination issue or some other factor.
As most of the squash plants died back, and I cleared out the bean and sweetcorn plants,
I could see that some of the squash varieties did really well, with fruit spread over a large area.
This was really obvious with one of the larger, bright orange varieties, where the plant had grown
quite big, and this must have had a significant impact on the growth of the neighbouring plants
that were originally transplanted into the bed 1.25m apart on either side. And with other
varieties it was hard to initially find any fruit within the remaining vines and weed growth at the
side of the polytunnel. It was only after clearing out all the vines and the weeds, and pulling out
all the squash and pumpkins, that we were able to find fruit for most of the 30 varieties that we
planted, though some of the varieties didn't seem to produce anything. And unfortunately several of
the varieties were so similar, and we had planted them so close together, that it was impossible to
determine which squash belonged to which variety. Overall I was disappointed with the harvest, and
the small size of a lot of the squash that were produced. I had thought that there would have been
a much larger harvest from so many plants growing in the warmer conditions of this polytunnel,
and some of the varieties produced a lot less than I would have expected. But other varieties
produced a huge crop, with fruit spread over quite a large area. And I was able to pull out
a single vine from one of the more vigorous varieties that stretched more than 9m long,
which is about double the width and about half the length of the whole polytunnel.
So it seems that a few varieties out competed most of the other squash and pumpkin plants,
producing a good crop at the expense of these other varieties, and this seemed to reduce the
overall yield within this enclosed growing space. While it is perhaps useful to figure
out which varieties can grow much more vigorously in this context, it's not really a proper trial
of all the other varieties, and how they would grow in this context without that competition.
We also grew 12 of these varieties of squash and pumpkins outside, in a space beside this
polytunnel, again as part of the trial of the three sisters. I had selected these 12
varieties based on the results of the trial the previous year, and all of which had done
reasonably well. With a range of different types and sizes of squash and pumpkins,
a lot of these varieties struggled, and others did reasonably well, but the overall growing
conditions were not great. This section of ground has not been very well developed,
and the weather was not so great for growing this heat loving plant, especially later in
the season. I was also delayed in getting around to harvesting this patch, which caused the squash
of some of the varieties to start to rot. This was unfortunate, but it was useful in determining
which varieties produce squash that seemed to be able to handle the adverse conditions later in
the season quite well. Three of the varieties that did well in the polytunnel also did well outside,
which is a useful indication, but I think a lot of this might be due to the unfair competition
between the plants. One of the varieties that was very vigorous in the polytunnel hardly produced
any fruit outside, and those fruit that did develop rotted before I was able to harvest
them. And the one variety that produced a lot of large fruit inside the polytunnel
also produced a lot outside. So this is one variety to definitely consider growing again
in a context where there is a lot of space, but it's only really worth grow this variety again if
the squash are able to ripen properly and store well, and that we like using it in the kitchen.
We also grew some of these varieties in the outside family scale gardens, with just enough
space for one plant each of three varieties in three of these gardens. Overall the yield was
reasonably good, similar to previous years, even though one variety didn't produce very well. The
plants from the Crown Prince hybrid variety that have grown for many years produced as expected,
with between 2 and 5 fruit weighing a total of 12 to 13 kg from each plant. This is similar to what
the one plant of the same variety produced in the three sisters planting of the polytunnel,
but the plant in the outside companion planting produced noticeably less, and I assumed that this
was due to less developed soil fertility. In the larger space of the Simple Garden,
where the squash plants had a much wider area to grow into, we planted two plants of this variety,
and each of these plants produced five squash, with a total weight of more than 23 kg per
plant on average, which is more than twice the weight of what we were able to harvest off of
the same plants in the other gardens. Part of this may be due to better growing conditions,
and better fertility management with the methods used in this garden,
but the vines from these plants were also able to occupy a lot more space.
Beside these Crown Prince plants we grew another hybrid variety called Harlequin,
which produces a smaller acorn type squash on a significantly smaller plant, These plants
produced only four smaller squash with a total weight of about 3 kilograms per plant on average,
which is not a lot, but it was actually more than in either of the three sisters companion
plantings. I'm not sure how much a variety like this would be able to produce if they were growing
beside plants of similar size and vigor, but in this mixed planting, with more vigorous varieties,
with much longer vines planted on either side, this probably reduced the possible yield. In the
larger bed of the simple garden we planted three plants of this variety, but each plant produced
significantly different fruit possibly because of cross-pollination within the seeds that I bought,
but that's another story. We also added two plants of the Bush Delicata variety, which has
a similar compact growth habit. And these five plants growing in the middle of a larger bed,
definitely suffered from the competition with their much more aggressive neighbours,
producing only 1.6 kg of squash per plant, on average, which is hardly worth it. The long
trailing vines of the other varieties took up a lot of the space in and around these more compact
plants, and I suspect that the root systems underground would have been equally aggressive,
and were able to outcompete the potentially weaker root systems of the bush plants for
the necessary water and nutrients within the sheet composting layer. And I suspect that a
similar thing happened in the other gardens, though to a lesser extent.
The other variety of squash we grew in the outside gardens is called Orange Hokkaido,
which is an open-pollinated, Japanese type of squash, which according to the variety
description is supposed to produce squash about 1 to 1.5 kg in weight. This is about
the weight of the squash that was produced by these plants in both of the inside and outside
companion plantings of the Three Sisters. In one of the other outside gardens, the plants of this
variety produce squash within the expected range, but in the other outside gardens, the plants from
this variety produced much larger and heavier squash, two to three times heavier than expected.
In three of the outside gardens, where there was less space for these squash plants to grow into,
the plants of this variety produced between three and five squash. But in the larger
space of the Simple Garden, the one plant of this variety produced 16 squash, and I had
to double check that it was all actually from one plant. And the squash were all really big,
with an average weight of about 3.7 kg, compared to the 1 to 1.5 kg that this variety is expected
to produce. This was a total of almost 60 kg of squash produced from one plant.
The orange squash from this one plant transplanted at the far end of the bed,
were spread out over this large growing space, with the vines covering quite an extensive area,
and I expect that the root system would have been also quite extensive. But the overall yield from
all eight plants in this bed was significantly less than what I've been able to harvest from
the squash bed of the Simple Garden in the past. And the plant of this variety was not
nearly as aggressive and productive growing in the more sheltered conditions of the polytunnel,
and I'm not really sure why this would be the case. It is possible that there is a
mixup in varieties in the seeds in this pack, or it might be an issue of cross-pollination,
which is something I've seen a few times before. Or this could be part of the natural variation of
an open pollinated variety that has not been well maintained over the years. But I suspect that the
typical size and vigor of this variety are from a context where numerous plants of the same variety
are growing quite close together, away from other varieties. In this case there would be fairly
similar competition for all of the plants, preventing any of them from getting too big.
The significant variation in this one variety and the few plants in
the polytunnel that grew really big, point to a fundamental flaw in variety trials,
especially with larger plants like squash. Growing one plant of each variety, spaced at
random beside other varieties that may have very different growth habits, is not a fair comparison.
And in the gardens where I planted three or four different varieties in a relatively small space,
the same kind of distortion of results can occur. And this is where context is so important. I
don't necessarily want to find varieties that can produce a huge amount from a single plant
that is given a lot of space to grow into, or to only grow varieties that can easily out compete
the others. I'm actually looking for varieties of squash that will do well in smaller spaces,
where multiple plants of similar varieties will produce a lot of squash, of the kind that we find
useful and tasty. And that type of trial would take up a lot more space, with multiple plants
of each variety, and definite segregation of varieties with very different growth habits. All
of this raises questions about the variety trials that I've been doing with the other vegetables,
where I might be growing them in conditions that may be favouring the more vigorous varieties. For
next year I think it's probably better to grow the smaller less vigorous bush varieties in the
outside gardens where there is less space devoted to the squash crop. And perhaps grow the larger
more aggressive varieties in the larger space of the Simple Garden, and it will be interesting to
see how productive and effective this type of segregated planting of squash could be.
I still want to try growing more of these varieties in better conditions,
but I'm not sure if I'm going to have the space for another large variety trial of squash next
year. There are so many other things that I want to explore and squash take up a lot of space,
but they also don't take up a lot of time. So it comes down to a balance between the amount
of space that I have, the amount of time that I can devote, and the amount of help that I can
get. And this is directly related to how much support I can get through this YouTube channel,
which provides most of the funding for this RED Gardens Project. If you want to support
my continuing explorations in this project, and want to help me make more videos like this, please
check out the links to my Patreon and PayPal accounts in the video description, but only if
you have the surplus resources. And of course the usual liking, sharing, commenting and subscribing
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you for everyone who has supported this project in the past, and for everyone who continues to
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