Garden Lesson
Of all the things we have learned in our first year of growing a produce garden, one discovery is standing out larger than all the others, literally.
Cyndie was thinking of the reputation zucchini has for growing like crazy and producing more squash than home gardeners can find uses for. Instead, she naively opted for an alternative that sounded more petite: Cupcake squash.
OOPS!
There is nothing petite about the beast that we ended up with. It quickly climbed up and over her perimeter fencing and continues to sprawl unconstrained with some of the largest leaves we’ve ever seen. At first, all this incredible growth wasn’t producing any squash, so Cyndie did some research and discovered she needed to pollinate them herself. The bees weren’t getting it done naturally. After reading how to identify the male and female flowers, she armed herself with a cotton swab and set about giving nature an assist.
The results were soon evident.
They may be small like cupcakes, but it appears this alternate squash can be just as prolific as the prodigious abundance of the more common zucchini.
Cyndie’s looking up a recipe for cupcake squash bread right now.
I’m looking forward to her taming this cupcake monster that is taking over such a large swath of our garden and surroundings.
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Relative Something 
Is there any way you can chop up some of those huge leaves and feed them to the chickens? How much plant matter will chickens eat?
wtbell
August 31, 2020 at 8:58 am
Ours definitely prefer bugs. They surprise us frequently over what they will or won’t eat when Cyndie puts out kitchen scraps. I’ve watched the adults leap to grab raspberries off the plant, but haven’t noticed them ever show much interest in leaves of the plants.
johnwhays
August 31, 2020 at 9:13 am
HaHa…you just never know! I have not had many gardens but there were two summers I tried…back to back. The first summer our crop of zucchini was amazing! The second summer someone turned me on to eating zucchini flowers. YUMMY!!! But at the end of the summer I made an observation…we hardly had ANY zucchini!!! Then I remembered….OHHHHHHH….THAT’S BECAUSE WE ATE THE FLOWERS!!! Duh!!
I have never heard of cupcake squash… you will have to let us know how the bread turns out.
Sending all good thoughts!
lorriebowden
August 30, 2020 at 12:14 pm
That’s a wonderful story! I look forward to sharing it with Cyndie for a chuckle.
johnwhays
August 30, 2020 at 12:26 pm
Clearly not my brightest moment! 🙂 It was really funny when the realization set in. Hope you both have a wonderful week!
lorriebowden
August 30, 2020 at 12:28 pm