The Tao of Vegetable Gardening by Carol Deppe

Author:Carol Deppe [Deppe, Carol]
Language: ara, eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Published: 2015-01-04T19:28:45+00:00

‘Candystick Dessert Delicata’ Squash

There is a large chapter in The Resilient Gardener on growing and using summer and winter squash, so in this book I limit myself to discussing things I have learned about squash more recently. ‘Candystick Dessert Delicata’ is a new variety. Here is its story.

* * *

There are few winter squash varieties in existence that can match the sweetness and intensity of flavor of the delicata types. These varieties have a flavor that is distinctly different from that of all other squash and pumpkins. The fruits are generally loaf-shaped with longitudinal green stripes against a cream or tan background (depending on variety) except for ‘Sweet Dumpling’, which is roundish and flattened or punched in around the stem end. The green and cream delicata varieties are ‘Delicata’, ‘Delicata—JS’, ‘Delicata—Zeppelin’, ‘Cornell Bush Delicata’, and ‘Sweet Dumpling’.

The green-and-tan-striped varieties, ‘Sugar Loaf’ and ‘Honeyboat’, were both bred by Jim Baggett out of a single plant in a field of ‘Delicata’ that had the tan-and-green-striped fruits. Tan delicatas are like turbocharged delicatas. They are even sweeter and more intensely flavorful than any of the cream lines. Unfortunately, the commercial ‘Sugar Loaf’ has lost quality and vigor to the point where it is no longer worth growing. Fortunately, the variety was maintained independently and further selected by Mike Hessel, who, as a graduate student with Jim Baggett, had been involved with ‘Sugar Loaf’ from the beginning. Mike’s line, ‘Sugar Loaf—Hessel’ is the best line of ‘Sugar Loaf’ available. (The seed is sold by Nichols Garden Nursery.)

Unfortunately, none of these delicata varieties produce fruits bigger than about 1.5 pounds/680 g. In addition, the flesh is thin, typically no more than about half an inch (1.3 cm) thick. These squash are often referred to as just the right size for a serving for one person. Apparently many people consider only a few bites of vegetable a serving. I like much bigger servings of vegetables; I need two or three delicatas that size to make what I consider a serving. This means a lot of labor cutting and cleaning squash per serving. I wanted bigger delicatas, or delicatas with thicker flesh, or both. That is, I wanted much more edible food per squash. So it was time to breed a better delicata.

One logical approach would have been to cross my favorite delicata variety of that era, ‘Sugar Loaf—Hessel’, to another Cucurbita pepo variety that was much bigger but also of good culinary quality, then recover delicata flavor and quality combined with bigger size by recombination and selection in future generations. Unfortunately, all of the C. pepo varieties of good culinary quality are relatively small. So if I crossed the ‘Sugar Loaf—Hessel’ to something much bigger, it would have to be to something much bigger of poor quality, for example, one of the big, watery, coarse-fleshed, flavorless Halloween pumpkins. However, generally all the poor quality characteristics tend to be dominant in crosses. And many characteristics are involved in fruit quality with many genes associated with each characteristic.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.