Sylvia S

June 3rd
I chose a site where no cucurbits or cucumbers had grown for at least 4 years.  I planted 2 groups of 2 seeds each, for a total of 4 seeds.  I planted radishes between the two groups.  Two of the seeds germinated; and two did not.  (Perhaps rodents got them? There were so many chipmunks this year.)  I did not use row covers.  I did only the usual garden activities - weeding, watering when dry, slightly redirecting the vines as they grew.

I noticed (and killed) several striped cucumber beetles when the plants were just getting established.  None later on.  I did not find squash borers. 

 

Labor Day

As of today, the VT Hubbard foliage is blight-free, although the pepos 30 feet away have been severely affected.  I was rather sloppy about recording dates of development.  The first two photos showing the foliage and baby squash were taken July 23rd.

From the 2 plants that emerged, there are three dark green beauties, as in the third photo.  They are clearly full-grown, but I am not sure how to tell when they are fully mature (ready to harvest), since I didn't note the flowering date.  

Other observations:  The two plants each appear to branch into two principle vines, with numerous side branches.  One of the plants yields a single fruit about 6 feet from the base.  The second vine has two fruits six and 8 feet along the vine.  The vine keeps going and two more smaller fruits are developing in another 6 and 8 feet.  The entire vine reaches 20 feet.  Other vines and their branches are not quite so long.

Overall, this has been an easy plant to grow.               

 

 

 

Syl

 Seeds were direct-sown on May 27th, in 8 hills at 5 seeds each. I had 100% germination by June 6th. Hills were thinned to 2 or 3 plants each.

Early in the season I spent some time removing the seed leaves and any compromised leaves from around the base of the plants since these often provide cover for cucumber beetles and squash bugs. I also banked soil around the base of the vines at grade to discourage the moth that lays stem borer eggs near the soil. The vines are moderately vigorous and seem to be very attractive to cucumber beetles. The beetles are most drawn to recently spent blossoms. I now remove these early in the morning while the beetles are still sluggish, both so that I know where I’ve checked for beetles, and so that the rotting blossoms don’t remain around the vines. I check every other day for squash bug eggs. These have been easier to find and remove than the adults who lay them.

 

Same squash about one and a half weeks apart. Notice the thickness of the vines to get a sense of scale.

Syl's Update (8/8)

My experience seems to be similar to that of others. The variety is very susceptible to squash vine borers, cucumber beetles, and squash bugs. All of this is making me wonder whether this is part of the reason the variety fell out of cultivation. The squash borers are the most challenging insect to deal with. You can cover the plants till they begin to flower, although I’ve never been a big fan of row cover. The moths that lay the eggs are beautiful, and a little hard to catch. I’m growing another squash, Doran Round, that Brian wanted to try. I think it’s a moschata. It has shown no evidence whatsoever of any of these three insects. Did someone suggest that maximas are more susceptible as a species than moschatas?

 

No photos of the squash, but here are the surgical tools I used to deal with the vine borers:

Right to left: an Xacto blade, useful because of the long handle, tweezers for extracting the offending grub, and a metal staple for fastening the surviving vine to the soil in hopes that it will root and allow the squash to finish ripening.

 

9/25 Update

Kye’s photo of her VT Hubbard squash harvest got me out to the porch, where mine are curing, to take this photo. There is one remaining excellent specimen still in the garden. It is not yet fully ripe, so I’m going to wait as long as possible to harvest it.

 

Most of the squashes I harvested conform well to the characteristics we’re looking for based on the ones Heron provided us with. They are smaller, though. Heron thinks we may still get good seed even if the flesh isn’t perfect. Only one is an off-type, with warty skin. I won’t save seed from that one. The characteristics we’re looking for are visible in all the squash in the photo except the one in the extreme left—the one with warty skin. These are, of course, all external, or phenotypical, characteristics. I’ll have to see when I open them up whether things like flesh color and texture, size of seed cavity, etc., are also similar. But so far I’m encouraged.

 

10/28 Syl's Final Update

Yesterday I harvested the last of the VT Hubbard squashes. It grew to what I hope is representative of specimens that we can keep free of most insects and especially the vine borer. At 6 1/2 lbs, it was able to mature on a vine that had survived the vine borer onslaught. It was also the largest of all the VT Hubbard squash I was able to grow. 

 

As it continued to mature it became a magnet for cucumber beetles that collected on its surface and needed to be removed daily. They nibbled the outer surface and are responsible for the little brown divots. 

 

My total harvest for the season was 19 squashes.

 

Margaret

First female blossom (7/17 and fruit (7/21)

 

Stuart

Vines and first fruit (7/21)

This is my one hill, two vines, of Vermont Hubbard.  It's the biggest of all my squash vines, although I started these about a week later than my other varieties.  Here it is using the escape path through the electric fence.

 

Stuart's Update (7/28)

I've been naive about squash vine borers.  I think just last week I said on this email list that I'd never had them.  I can't say that anymore.

 

I saw the photos that Ruth posted on the wiki yesterday of her wilted VT Hubbard vines with the lament  that the borer was having its way.  I thought, by golly, one of my VT Hubbard vines looked just like that two days ago and both of them looked like that yesterday.  So I looked up squash vine borers online and read up on symptoms, control measures, etc.

 

There's a lovely photo of a squash borer moth here: https://images.app.goo.gl/RjG5QGpaiRVBBFcq6

 

Turns out we have had that in the garden.  In fact, just last month, as I was preparing a bed for late kale, right where my squash had grown last year, I saw a chrysalis (if that's the right term for a moth) starting to pop open.  And what popped out looked (eventually) like the moth in the photo.  So overcome was I by the miracle of pupation that I went to fetch Li and we oohed and ahhed over this marvelous little creature.  We noted two or three empty chrysalis, identical to the first, nearby.  The one that had so enamored me could have been the one that laid eggs at the base of my VT Hubbard vines.

 

It didn't take me long to find a video of this folksy midwesterner demonstrating how to excise the nasty larvae from the vine stems.  https://youtu.be/UkKLxQcEPuU

 

Today both vines wilted as soon as the sun came out.  So I got out my dentist mirror and a utility knife and performed surgery with the able assistance of Dr. Li Shen.  (Who, regrettably, backed her rear end into the electric fence at 8400 volts, went airborne and landed with both feet squarely on the squash hill.)  I made my incision according to the youtube video, as any good surgeon does, and there it was:

You can see how tiny it is.  Hard to believe it's wreaking such havoc.  I elongated the incision further down the vine but found no more.  

 

The second vine has no tell-tale squishiness indicating internal damage but the wilting in the sun is dramatic, so I decided on exploratory surgery.  I cut a slit but found nothing except healthy tissue.  Well, previously healthy, anyway.

 

Who knows, maybe the grub-ectomy will be successful and the first vine will recover.  I have my doubts.  Nonetheless, I dressed the wounds with mounds of damp compost and the patients are resting, comfortably as far as I can tell.

 

So, it turns out that I was wrong about never having seen squash vine borer damage before.  I checked my notes from last year and almost exactly a year ago I removed a summer squash plant that had mysteriously thrown in the towel and collapsed.  I'd never seen that before and didn't look further.  Now I know.

 

Stuart's Update (8/7)

Zombie Squash

Well, I'm not sure the surgery to remove the squash vine borer can be categorized as a success.  The stem has completely rotted away and detached from the (original) roots.  The second vine is in almost the same condition.  And yet... they live on.  Obviously, they vines have sent down roots from one or more spots along their lengths.  They don't look great but, they haven't quit yet.

 

 

 

 

10/16 Stuart's final growing season update
One hill, two vines, two fruit, 3.5 and 2.25 lbs respectively.  See the
photo.

The vines never recovered from the squash vine borer surgery performed by the sub-quack amateur.  They put down secondary roots and did their
heroic best to hang in even after the stems were completely severed from the primary roots.  The secondary roots struggled  to penetrate the grass thatch.  The vines were virtually dead on Sept 4, when I removed the two fruit.  They look kind of normal although smallish.  I have no idea how ripe they actually got.  I'm saving them for a meal on an especially weird occasion.
Oh, wait till next year!  I'm going to outsmart those vine borers... 

 

(11/30)  Stuart's first eating/storage season update

I only got two fruit from my VT Hubbard vine in my less-than-impressive first attempt this year.  The vine died early due to vine borer damage and I really wasn't expecting that the fruit had fully ripened.  But I wanted to give it a shot during Thursday's special meal.  It tasted much better than I was expecting.  Not quite as dry-fleshed or nutty flavored as a Red Kuri but pretty darn good.  I'll definitely give it another shot next year.

I'm hoping other people are finding it to be tasty, too.  In case mine was just a fluke of genetics, I saved the seeds, of course.

 

---

Ruth

(7/26) Furthest along fruit and vines succumbing to the borer, so wilted on a hot day, so sad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

8/14 Update - Some vines recovered well after vine borer surgery. Others I lost completely. The survivors rooted along the vines and continued to grow. I didn't have a lot of mulch so it was easy for the roots to reach the soil. I also encouraged vine to soil contact at the nodes. About 7 fruits are growing nicely.

 

9/8 Update

 

9/20 Update

First three curing on the porch and one of the original stems where it emerged from the ground. The secondary roots along the vine had pretty much taken over.

 

 

10/9 Final Update

Below are the seven Vermont Hubbards I harvested from the vines that re-rooted and survived after borer surgery. They all have the basic shape except the heaviest one that has a straight neck and another mid-size one that is kind of flattened. There is a bit of wartiness on some. The seeds I planted came from a different batch that Heron gave me, just for comparison.

They weigh:

6 lbs, 5 lbs 13 oz, 5 lbs 12 oz, 4 lbs 12 oz, 3 lbs 12 oz, 3 lbs 8 oz, 2 lbs 9 oz

The leaves, flowers, and prickly vines were all very uniform and typical.

        

 

Kye

(8/8) Vermont Hubbards seem to be having comparable troubles to those mentioned already.  Some of them look great, and I think others have that squash vine borer.

9/23 Kye's Update

Here are most of my Hubbards; it turned out I got 20, from 7 vines.

 

10/12 Kye's Final Update

Here is a photo of my Vermont Hubbards; sorry it isn't clearer, but they are in a dark basement. 

There are 18 of them in storage; 3 went bad before I realized that I should have cured them longer before I took them inside.  One I cut with the scythe when I didn't realize it was there under the weeds, and so I cooked it and turned it into delicious  squash soup.  So I ended up with 21, from 7 squash vines (if you count the one that is 1.1 pounds.) The weights go from 1.1 lb to 13.3 lbs. 

I've learned a lot about growing squash; thanks for all the growing and storing hints!

 

Karla

(8/9) I have not found a squash vine borer on the Vermont Hubbards, but at least one of the roots looks possibly suspicious (photo below).  However, no wilting so far (correction one vine now wilting since I tromped through the area; will recheck tomorrow).  Please note that I have seen the squash vine borer moth (multiple) on several occasions and I removed a squash vine borer larva from a C. pepo today, located in a nearby garden approx. 40-50' away from the Vermont Hubbard.

One note:  There are two immature Vermont Hubbard squash, each on a different vine [and plant] which appear to be yellow in the center and green on the ends.  I am mentioning this becauseI believe  the other immature squash have all been more green.  On each of the two vines with the yellowish squash, there are also immature and maturer green squash on the same vine; one of them has red spots/markings on the skin (possibly pest/other related ??).

I have C. moschata and C. pepo in the same garden area as C. maxima (Vermont Hubbard); c. moschata (Canada Crookneck) is adjacent to the Hubbard and c pepo is further away.  No squash vine borer on any these as far as I can tell though I have seen the moth by C. pepo.

I planted radish and a borage near the squash.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Karla

Final Update

Vermont Hubbard Notes (added 10.14.2020; added weights and dimensions for squash on 11.12.2020):

Number of seeds sown:              10

Number of seeds germinated:    10

Date seeds sown indoors:           05.13.2020

Date transplanted:                      06.05.2020

Number of plants transplanted: 9 plants (1 did not survive ; a 2^nd was questionable)

Harvest Date:                             09.16.2020 (1^st freeze 09.14 or 9.15 wilted/killed the leaves)

Number of plants harvested:      *7 or 8 plants

Number of vines per plant:        1-2;

Maximum vine length:               19’

Number of fruit harvested:        10 (there were a couple of rotted tiny/small fruit not counted)

Maximum fruit per vine:             2 (mostly 1)

Smallest squash weight:            2 lbs 10.9 oz

Largest squash weight:              8 lbs 1.6 oz.

Smallest squash dimensions:    6" long x 5" wide (crude measurement)
Largest squash dimensions:     11" long x 7" wide (crude measurement)

Vine Texture:                             vines were a little rough; relative to e.g. C. pepo Costata Romanesca the Hubbard vines were much smoother;

Vermont Hubbard Plants:
– Plant 1: 1 vine; 1 fruit; 14’ 8” vine; fruit at 8’;

– Plant 2: 1 vine; 1 fruit; 18’ vine; fruit at 5’9”; fruit had a wart/other;

– Plant 3: 1 vine; 2 fruit; 19’ vine; fruit at approx. 3’ (largest) and 16’ (smallest);

– Plant 4: 1 vine; 1 fruit; 14’ 9” vine; fruit at 6’ 7”;

– Plant 5: 2 vines; 2 fruit; 5’ 3’ (smaller fruit at 4’) and 10’ 8” (larger fruit) vines;

– Plant 6: 2 vines; 1 fruit; 3’ (no fruit) and 10’ 8” vines; fruit at 5’ 9”;

– Plant 7: 1 vine; 1 fruit; 12’ vine; fruit at 9’ 3”;

– *Plant 8 or vine: 1 vine; 1 fruit; >= 17’ 2” vine; fruit at 10’ 2”; vine was broken;

*Plant 8 is possibly a vine of another plant (1-7) – I broke the vine when harvesting and couldn’t figure out which plant it belonged to; I don’t recall finding a root without a vine however it could have been an 8^th plant;

All measurements are approximate.

 

Treatments: none; I did add more compost after they had been growing for a while; I also overhead watered quite a bit early on;
Companion plants: Radish (Watermelon) (sowed 06.07.2020) and Borage (didn’t fully mature)

 

Pests: 1 brown Beetle (asiatic garden beetle?) with web type white substance; a cucumber beetle? seen on a blossom (see photo below); possibly the squash vine borer? (see photo below) - moths seen flying nearby on C. Pepo. Note: I did not see wilting other than on 1 vine after I tromped through the vines but it seemed to recover.

Disease: possibly Powdery Mildew / other (see photos)

Harvested Vermont Hubbards:

Warty misshapen fruit and possible fungus/other:

Same fruit approx. 5 weeks earlier:

Downy mildew?:

Rotting holes- 1 Hubbard:

Brown Beetle (asiatic garden beetle?):

Possibly the squash vine borer:

Male Flowers:

Female Flower (not in bloom) and with a cucumber beetle? (top of blossom):

Seedlings: