Zucchini, squash or pumpkin identifying help!!

Goatcreekfarm · Sat Apr 23, 2016 10:16 am

This is our second summer garden at our current house. We brought in the soil. I have dogs and they chewed and left a bunch in the garden. So I have a lot growing back from the veggies being left behind. I had 1 yellow squash plant and about 15 regular zucchini plants last year. There are about 10 growing in random places through the yard and garden. I did not plant them. The weird thing is I don't recognize it. It is round looking and is in between a squash and zucchini. Can a veggie seed come back as a different looking veggie? Can you help me identify it? All of them look like this except 1 is a yellow squash for sure. These leaves are also quite large like squash usually are compared to zucchini. It almost remind me of a pumpkin. Actually my dogs did chew pumpkins too. Those mini striped pumkins at the grocery store- could it be that? Lol

rainbowgardener · Sat Apr 23, 2016 10:57 am

It would help if you would give a couple more pictures showing the leaf shape better.

Zucchini is of course a squash and there are many different kinds of squashes.

digitS' · Sat Apr 23, 2016 11:01 am

It sounds like the dogs had the most benefit from your vegetables and garden.

The plants can be a wide range of things, as you are suggesting. There are hybrids of all so there is a possibility that the offspring will bear only some resemblance to last year's crop.

Also, plants of these species cross pollinate on their own.

Volunteers of squash and pumpkins have not worked out well in my garden. Here was one experience: my neighbor and I share the same "tractor guy," tilling our gardens. The neighbor left lots of pumpkins in his garden one year. The tilling spread the seeds everywhere, including into my squash patch. I had trouble knowing which plants I had set out and which were volunteers.

Jack o'lantern pumpkins and zucchini do not look much alike but they are of the same species. They are both commonly grown and bees spread the pollen around. The small grey fruit that grew from my neighbor's volunteers looked like neither zucchini nor pumpkins. They had the unappetizing look of some kind of gourd.

Steve

Goatcreekfarm · Sat Apr 23, 2016 11:20 am

Ok good to know! So this could just be a mixture of all 3? Or some sort of hybrid zucchini and squash? I had 2 new puppies last summer so there was lots of chewing lol. I only had 4 of those mini tiger pumpkins and I think just one was chewed. But could have been enough I'm sure. I picked one and it seems harder than zucchini and is definitely round. The leaves don't look like pumkin leaves

marin29 · Sat Apr 23, 2016 1:42 pm

Hi,
I just joined this forum specifically for a question just like this one. So hopefully it's OK to piggyback my question onto this thread. It must be the time of year people need help identifying squash-like plants!

I planted my vegetable garden March 21st. There was already a small squash-like plant growing where my fairly-productive zucchini plant was growing last year. So I assumed it was a zucchini plant. It has grown incredibly fast, it's nearly 5 feet tall. I was wondering when it would start flowering and figured that perhaps it hasn't been warm enough. Just yesterday I noticed a small purple flower blooming, and today I see a bunch of purple buds. No yellow flowers. Does anyone know what this is?

applestar · Sat Apr 23, 2016 4:14 pm

@Marin29, that looks like some kind of a mallow/malva plant.

@Goatcreekfarm, I was thinking that zucchini is typically harvested as immature fruits, so unless you let some grow into huge clubs/boats with mature seeds they wouldn't be one of the suspects, except as a pollen donor that helped to pollinate a C.pepo species winter squash.

marin29 · Sat Apr 23, 2016 4:35 pm

Thank you applestar! After Googling malva, I believe you are right! Funny that I've never seen this in our yard before and it grew in the exact spot as last year's zucchini! I now have a 5 foot weed in my vegetable patch

Guess I'll be doing a little weeding today. I should remove the flowers before putting it in the compost bin!

jal_ut · Sat Apr 23, 2016 6:28 pm

All of the squashes will cross pollinate. It is not a problem this year, but if you save seed or if some come up volunteer, it is very likely the offspring will be a hybrid and the fruit will be different. Hey, it may still be good to eat. Just have to try it.

Mr green · Sat Apr 23, 2016 7:23 pm

jal_ut wrote:All of the squashes will cross pollinate. It is not a problem this year, but if you save seed or if some come up volunteer, it is very likely the offspring will be a hybrid and the fruit will be different. Hey, it may still be good to eat. Just have to try it.

True I even like to encourage these kind of things, its how we get new varieties!

buttercup11 · Tue Sep 20, 2016 5:26 pm

Hi, I'm new here and was looking for a conversation on volunteer pumpkin vines from compost piles and looks like I found one. A few vines appeared a couple of months ago from our compost pile which have produced lots of blossoms but only 2 pumpkins grew big enough to harvest - about 8" in diameter. I went ahead and picked them both when hungry bugs started arriving. One of the pumpkins was less mature than the other, or the seeds from one didn't look as well developed as the other. I went ahead and baked the pumpkins and think I have enough pulp to make at least one loaf of bread and one pie, maybe more. I think we'll save the best seeds to plant next year to see what happens. I'll put the others back in the compost pile and see if anything grows from it next year.

Well, I'm not sure this is the conversation I saw earlier, so I'll try to find it and post there. Anyway, it was very exciting to have volunteer pumpkins!

We live in central Kansas.