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Hi everyone. Hope this is in the proper catagory. I need help in identifying g this. I planted zucchini last year, they reseeded themselves this year. To boost the soil, I had a few rotten pumpkins that I tossed in the soil, and l turned the soil several times late fall and early spring this year. I decided to let the zucchini grow when I saw it sprout. This is what I got. Did it cross pollinate and create some sort of zucchini pumpkin hybrid?

Do you have a picture of the leaves?

This looks more like the seeds from the "rotten" pumpkin sprouted and you thought they were zucchini. Most pumpkins are same species as zucchini -- Cucurbita pepo and their blossoms will look very similar to exactly the same -- except perhaps in size ...and shape of the embryo/baby fruit at the base of the female blossoms of course. Difference would be in the growth characteristic of the vines since pumpkins tend to form long meandering vines.

If this fruit is immature with soft seeds, in one of the Little House books, Laura Ingalls Wilder describes Ma making "apple" pie out of immature green pumpkins.

dpm0514 wrote:

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Hi everyone. Hope this is in the proper catagory. I need help in identifying g this. I planted zucchini last year, they reseeded themselves this year. To boost the soil, I had a few rotten pumpkins that I tossed in the soil, and l turned the soil several times late fall and early spring this year. I decided to let the zucchini grow when I saw it sprout. This is what I got. Did it cross pollinate and create some sort of zucchini pumpkin hybrid?

Frankly, it could be one of a few things.

1) If you grew the pumpkins yourself, then they could easily have cross-pollinated with your zucchini & the resulting seed given you the result. If you didn't grow the pumpkins (or any other type of winter squash), then this would be impossible.

2) If the zucchini you grew were hybrids, then the zucchini reseeds could be a combo of whatever the original parents were composed of.

3) This is simply a juvenile pumpkin that has sprouted from one of your turned-under rotten pumpkin seeds. Again, could be a part of whatever parents made up the original pumpkin variety you had, or could just be a young pumpkin that would have turned orange if allowed to mature longer on the vine.

I didn't plant the zucchini this year, it reseeded itself from last year. The leaves look identical to that of a zucchini. However, it vines out like crazy. There's a bunch more juvenile pumpkins/zucchini, I'm going to let them grow fully and see what I get. Should I cut this one open and see what the seeds look like? Would that help me identify any easier?

applestar wrote:This looks more like the seeds from the "rotten" pumpkin sprouted and you thought they were zucchini. Most pumpkins are same species as zucchini -- Cucurbita pepo and their blossoms will look very similar to exactly the same -- except perhaps in size ...and shape of the embryo/baby fruit at the base of the female blossoms of course. Difference would be in the growth characteristic of the vines since pumpkins tend to form long meandering vines.

If this fruit is immature with soft seeds, in one of the Little House books, Laura Ingalls Wilder describes Ma making "apple" pie out of immature green pumpkins.

Yes, it has very long, meandering vines

dpm0514 wrote:I didn't plant the zucchini this year, it reseeded itself from last year. The leaves look identical to that of a zucchini. However, it vines out like crazy. There's a bunch more juvenile pumpkins/zucchini, I'm going to let them grow fully and see what I get. Should I cut this one open and see what the seeds look like? Would that help me identify any easier?

I don't think the seeds will help you I.d. it (squashes of that type have fairly identical-looking seeds), but unless you're planning on keeping it around for autumn decoration, you might cut it up & cook it to see what it tastes like. Then at least you have some idea of what you're dealing with as far as any others.

Yeah, I'll give it a whirl! Thank you everybody!!

You either have an F2 generation hybrid or some kind of crazy cross. Don't sweat the small stuff. When you think it is ripe harvest it. I would leave it alone for a while. Wait and see if it grows larger and/or changes color. A fun experiment.

OOOPS - you already harvested. If you have any more on the vine let them ripen more.