In depth gardening advice from an expert gardener
Are you planning your Thanksgiving feast yet? When you do, consider serving Kabocha, pronounced kah-bow-cha as part of the meal. The Latin name for kabocha is Cucurbita maxima and the common name is Japanese pumpkin or Japanese squash.
This delicious, sweet tasting pumpkin/squash is one of the sweetest of all the pumpkins/squashes. You eat almost every part of the Kabocha. You don’t have to peel it because both the skin and flesh are eaten. (see here)
Thanksgiving Decoration by alasam
Thanksgiving is coming soon and if you are like TheGardenLady, you are planning your festive meal. In contemplating what to serve, it struck me that there is one vegetable that is so tied up with the holiday, a vegetable that one could use as a basis for almost every course in the menu, that we should truly give thanks to the Native Americans who taught the Pilgrims about it. The vegetable I am writing about is the squash, in the genus Cucurbita which includes the pumpkin. So this year I am planning to be a little more creative with my Thanksgiving menu- making the theme of the menu based on squashes. Whether you are vegan, vegetarian or a carnivore, this might be something for you to consider this Thanksgiving.
First, to decorate the table, I think an assortment of squashes can look very festive as a centerpiece. It is a centerpiece that will hold up and last and can be used over the winter. Unlike cut flowers, winter squashes last and do not have to be refrigerated and can be used for months. (The thinner skinned, summer squashes like zucchini will have to be put in the refrigerator after a few days.) I thought I might put the squashes on a base of yellow fall leaves, if I can still find leaves by Thanksgiving and add some curlicued streamers. But one person’s blog went one step further and carved the squashes to resemble flowers. See here. I don’t know if I am so ambitious as to cook a full meal for the family and have time to carve my decorations.
Continue reading “Squash for Thanksgiving: Appreciation of a Native Vegetable”
                                                                          
TheGardenLady received this question from Kelsi.
I have a volunteer zucchini plant that popped up in my garden this year. However it is producing a bicolored zucchini I cannot identify. It is green on the blossom end and yellow on the vine end. Any ideas?
How exciting to have a zucchini volunteer. I hope you have tasty zucchinis.
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One seed cataloge that has bicolored zucchinis is from the company Johnnyseeds. Their’s is light green at the blossom end and yellow at the stem end. It is called Zephyr (F1) Product ID is 2217. Check out out the catalogue   Â
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TheGardenLady spoke to a friend about bicolored zucchinis. This vegetable gardener spoke about buying hybrid seeds and having some of the seeds in the packet not growing true to labeled form. Also, when hybrid seeds come back the following year like volunteer plants in your garden or compost, even though the last year’s product was a certain type, that seedling that returned might not grow true to form. Thus the volunteer might turn out to be a bicolor or some strange looking plant or vegetable. Only heritage vegetables will give seeds the following years that will be true to what you expected.Â