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Vegetable Gardening

Seeds from grocer's produce - acorn squash

albert_135 　 39.17°N 119.76°W 4695ft.

13 years ago

Often persons ask on forums such as this question to the affect 'Can I plant seeds from produce I get at the supermarket?'

There is the obligatory recitation about seeds from the supermarket may be hybrid and may/will produce something different from what parent plant. Personally I think difference is fascinating and consider that possibility a reason for trying it.

So I planted some seed from an acorn squash. They all germinated and thinning was required. Now I have squash plants. The stems are two inches tall and each has eight leaves and five male flowers. Fascinating.

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Comments (4)

wayne_5 zone 6a Central Indiana
13 years ago
I have a volunteer acorn type squash that is larger and fatter than most acorns. I hope it has at least some fiber like Honey Bear.
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albert_135 　 39.17°N 119.76°W 4695ft.
Original Author
13 years ago
I now have ten leaves and two more male flowers. The stem has not grown much, still near two inches. I guessing that this was bush type acorn squash selected for commercial production. Should I ever get fruit I will let you know. You do just get the uncontrollable giggles when someone shares something that no one else cares about?
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You can clean & dry the seeds, provided that the squash was mature at the time it was harvested. However, you might not want to. For one thing, if it was a hybrid, it will not breed true in the next generation. It could also have been cross-pollinated... which again, will not breed true in the next generation, and could give you some bizarre results. Acorn squash is Cucurbita pepo, which also contains most summer squash, most pumpkins, warted gourds, and spaghetti squash. Since this species is the most widely grown of the squashes, crosses are very commonplace. Bees will fly great distances to feed on the flowers. I grew acorn squash for seed several years ago (with no other squash within 1/4 mile) and I still had 2 crosses out of 18 plants this year. If the squash would not be important for food, my advice would be: go for it. You might get something interesting, or you might get acorn squash. But if you want to be sure of what you are growing, it's better to start with pure seed.
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Thanks, Farmerdill. Your post helps put me at ease. I planted the seedlings carefully while they just barely had their first true leaf each and still had big cotyledons (which makes them a rip-off, I know), and they're definitely growing rapidly. I wouldn't call them stunted, but I see how transplant stress probably made them flower early. I'll definitely just direct seed the next time around. Also, although the weather here has mostly been very agreeable, we already had 100 F weather about a week and a half back. So, I guess I shouldn't be surprised to have flowers; it's just very strange seeing such huge flowers on such tiny plants. I'm from Florida and know what you mean about diseases. Going by how my veggies did this last year here in Phoenix, I won't have to worry much about pests. If I harvest the immature acorn squash, will they still taste sweet? Also, would it be too taxing on my small plants to start producing so early? How many acorns should I allow to mature on the plants at a time? Thanks :)
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denninmi
13 years ago
Well, they may indeed by hybrids, so the F2 generation may have some variability. BUT, I personally an inclined to think that seeds from a grocery store squash are more likely to be basically true to type/variety than those from a home garden. Why? Because most commercial growers are going to have an enormous field of the same variety, in order to facilitate a uniform crop -- they like to harvest it all at once. A home garden is more likely to contain multiple varieties, therefore more types of pollen floating around with the bees.
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tomtuxman
13 years ago
FWIW, a couple years ago I saved seed from supermarket acorn and the resulting plants were fabulous and gave great fruit. Shoulda saved more seed from them but I didn't.
This past Spring I had a whole bunch of volunteer acorn and butternut in my compost pit, so I transplanted them in the veggie plot. The plants grew beautifully, putting out flower after flower -- ALL MALE. So I waited...and waited...and waited...and I finally said after a couple of months the heck with this and pulled those suckers. It was an all-boys club, no girls allowed.
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