You can learn about the best varieties of squash, how to properly prepare the soil, if you read this material.
Arguments in favor of growing squash
Patisson is called in another way dish-shaped pumpkin, and it tastes more like zucchini.
This vegetable has a beautiful disc-like shape. Its fruits of white, yellow, green, purple color are very decorative. It is useful to eat them for diseases of the kidneys, liver, anemia, obesity, ulcers, atherosclerosis.
Patisson can be boiled, fried, stewed, made into pancakes. It is especially good when pickled. If you plant mini-squash on your site, you can preserve small young fruits entirely, as they freely pass through the neck of the jar.
Large squash is also very tasty. They can be pickled by cutting into large pieces or chunks. For use in cooking, it is better to take the undisturbed fruits. These are easier to peel off the skin. Well-ripened squash is suitable for storage. Some of them can be put on the shelves in the room, which will only improve its design.
Growing squash is quite simple. Be sure to plant a few seeds, which in 1, 5-2 months will turn into bushes with openwork leaves, giving beautiful, healthy and tasty fruits.
Squash varieties
You will get a variety of colors and flavors if you plant squash of these varieties.
White-skinned fruits:
- Cheburashka. The variety is quite cold-resistant, ultra-early ripening, the first fruits ripen 35–39 days from germination. Mature squash of this variety weigh 200-400 g. The pulp is juicy, the skin is thin.
- Disk. An early ripe variety with a thin skin. The pulp is white, crispy, firm. The average weight of a ripe fruit is 350 g.
- Loaf. Early variety. Fruits are small, reaching 180–270 g. The variety is very productive, provided that proper conditions are provided, up to 26 fruits can be obtained from one plant.
Orange squash:
- Fouetté. Early ripe variety. The fruits have a white pulp with a delicate taste, weighing 250-300 g. The variety is good for storage.
- UFO Orange. The variety is early maturing, bears fruit even in difficult growing conditions. Fleshy fruits weigh with orange-yellow pulp, low juice content on average 300 g. This variety of squash is rich in vitamin C and trace elements.
- Sun. High-yielding, mid-season. Ripe fruits weigh 250–300 g. Creamy pulp.
Purple variety:
Bingo Bongo. The first fruit ripens on the 39-43 day! This small plant has a raised rosette of leaves, so this variety is easy to care for. The bush is compact, it will take up little space. The fruits themselves are large, with juicy pulp, can reach a weight of 450-600 grams
Dark green varieties:
- Chunga-Changa is a representative of mid-season varieties of squash. The yield is excellent. Fruits are juicy, large, with a delicate taste - up to 500-700 g.
- Gosh. Large early ripe variety of squash. Ripe fruits have an almost black skin, and the flesh is milky white.
Planting squash
Like other pumpkin seeds, squash can be planted immediately in the garden bed, at the end of any frost, or you can first grow seedlings. Her main problem is stretching. This can be avoided if you plant squash seeds no more than a month before planting seedlings in the ground; give her enough light at home, do not over-water and ensure the growing temperature is + 18– + 23 ° С. If you want to prepare the seeds of the squash according to all the rules, then first sort them out, remove the damaged ones. Place the rest in a double layer of gauze or bandage and immerse in 1% potassium permanganate solution for 25 minutes.
During this time, prepare a nutrient solution from water with a growth stimulant or wood ash or aloe juice. In ash, aloe, there are many micronutrients that will help seedlings to appear more amicable and grow healthy, strong. On ? a liter of water needs a tablespoon of ash. Scarlet juice is diluted with water in a 1: 1 ratio. Leaves cut off with a sharp knife are first put into the refrigerator for 2 weeks, and then squeezed out of juice.
After the seeds have lain in potassium permanganate, they are washed and placed in a prepared nutrient solution for 5-6 hours. Then, it is rinsed and placed in a refrigerator for a day (not in a freezer!), Where the temperature is + 3– + 5 ° С. Such low above-zero temperatures allow the seeds to harden, so that then they feel good in the open field if a cold snap begins. In addition, after being in the refrigerator, once in the warm soil of the pot, the seedlings will grow faster.
Plant each seed in a separate peat pot with moist light soil to a depth of 1.5 cm (without adding soil to the edges by 3 cm). Cover with cellophane, place on a sunny windowsill. When germination appears, remove the film and provide a temperature of +15 - + 22 ° C.
If the stem will still stretch, just add earth under it. When the seedlings are 25 days old, it's time to plant them on the site. All frosts should be over by this time. In the Central lane - this is May 15-20. If suddenly the weather forecast promises a night frost, water the seedlings, cover them with non-woven material. In any case, it is better to do it. After all, spunbond, lutrasil or agrofibre will create an optimal microclimate and help plants to take root better.
You can cover not only with white, but also with colored non-woven fabric. Now a two-tonne is on sale. On top there will be a red side, which will give the optimal portion of sunlight and warmth; and yellow below. If pests appear in this area, they will not damage the seedlings, since they are more attracted to the yellow color, so they will be on this side of the nonwoven fabric, and not on the plants themselves.
Preparing the soil for planting squash
Depending on the type of soil, its preparation is different.
On peat soils per 1 sq. m. you need to add 2 kg of compost or humus, 1 bucket of clay or loamy soil, as well as 1 tsp. potassium sulfate, superphosphate, 2 tbsp. l. wood ash. Then you need to dig up a bed whose width is 60–70 cm, level the surface and pour with a warm solution consisting of 5 liters of water, 1 tbsp. l. liquid fertilizer "Agricola-5", spending on 1 sq. m. by 3 liters. After that, the bed is covered with a film so that the moisture does not evaporate, and the place for the squash is well warmed up.
- On sandy soils, 1 sq.m. you need to add 1 bucket of peat and sod land, 3 kg each of sawdust and humus; add 2 tbsp. l. wood ash and 1 tbsp. l. superphosphate.
- On light loamy and clayey soils, 2 kg of peat, sawdust, humus must be applied to the same area. From mineral fertilizers it is necessary to add the same components as on sandy soils.
- On fertile chernozem lands, 1 tbsp is applied to the same territory. l. superphosphate, crushed into powder, 2 tbsp. l. wood ash and 2 kg of sawdust.
If you have a virgin land that you are just starting to develop, you need to dig it up well, choosing the roots of weeds, May beetle larvae, wireworm. Then add 2.5 kg of compost or humus, 1 tbsp. l. nitrophosphate and 2 tbsp. l. wood ash. Next, dig up and pour over with Agricola-5 solution, as on peat soil.
So that there are fewer weeds on this site, it is advisable to plant potatoes on the virgin soil in the first year, digging up the soil, and in the second - squash. Then there will be much less weeds in this area, and the earth will become loose. The prepared soil is covered with a film and squash is planted in 5-7 days. Seedlings are planted in the 3rd decade of May, and this crop is planted with seeds in mid-May. The garden should be spacious. Squashes are planted according to the scheme 60 x 60 cm. Seeds on light soil are lowered to a depth of 5, and on heavy soil - by 3 cm.
Squash care
It is necessary to water the squash with water heated in the sun every 5-7 days. The ground around the bushes is not loosened so as not to damage the root system. If the soil is heavily compacted, carefully make a few punctures with the forks so that the water can pass unhindered. Watering must be done carefully - in the grooves or at the root, so that water does not get on the ovaries, and the fruits do not rot. This can be avoided by placing boards or pieces of plywood under the fruits so that they do not touch the ground. Sometimes you need to pick off the lower dried leaves.
The first feeding is organic. On wet soil, seedlings are watered with infusion of mullein (1:10) or bird droppings (1:20), when 5-6 true leaves appear on it. When the plants begin to bear fruit, with an interval of 3 weeks, feed them twice with a solution prepared from 10 liters of water, 2 tbsp. l. fertilizer "Forward" and 1 tsp. nitrophosphate.
As a result, you will have a lot of healthy, tasty and very beautiful squash!
Secrets of a rich harvest of squash in this video:
