Here's another weird thing about this vine. Most of the very young squash is light green and oblong. But there are a few others that are small, completely round like a pumpkin, and bright orange (the same colors as the oblong fruits once they get big and mature)! It *is* only one vine -- I checked. Strange. Why would a vine put out different shapes of fruits?? Would the seeds at least be edible if they were cooked, like pumpkin seeds? Trying to justify keeping this monster in my garden . . . :-) Mel

I grow the Adapazari Squash,a Turkish variety. We also use as edible landscaping.I usually get one large Squash per plant. My largest this year was 54Lbs. You can read about it on the Garden Web Heirloom Forum. Jim

Hi writersblock. No, I have not tried Seminole pumpkin at all. Not sure if I would recognize one if it bit me, but I have had very good luck with sweet potato and white potatoes both in a large "tote" style container and in the ground. Their runners generally get to about 8 ft long. I generally plant the tote with 6 or 7 seed 'taters to use as a test bed before digging in my main bed, and you're right the vines will put down roots in fertile soil. For containment of the long vines I have encircled the large bed with a cheap roll of picket fencing and as the vines get long I just flip them back over on top of themselves. Right now they are stacked about 2 ft thick. This technique might work for you also. Before I forget to tell you, I have found a mulch that is great for all plants and I have used it with success this year. It's chopped straw (not hay) with a coating that glues it into place. Lets the water and air thru but doesn't blow away and the best part is that at the end of the growing season I just till it in to add organics to the soil. Are you aware of this product?

I have about 30 volunteer plants of what I thought was squash that washed down the hill from our chicken run. Tons of male flowers, lots of female flowers. I have fertilized them and taken care of them just as if I had planted them. Because they were very dense, I have cut back some of the foliage to let in the sunlight. Yesterday, I found several nice fist-sized squash, so I picked them and brought them into the house. I googled pics of small, round squash but could find nothing that looked like the ones I had picked. I was trying to find out when they should be picked - what they looked like, etc. Suddenly, it dawned on me that these were probably not squash (we feed our chickens leftovers and unsellable veggies & fruits from a local produce stand where I work on occasion), as I couldn't remember any time that we had fed the girls any small, round squash. However, we had fed them several PUMPKINS last fall! I quickly looked up pics of immature pumpkin and THERE THEY WERE! I felt badly that I had picked 2 of them so early, so looked it up to see if you could eat unripe pumpkin. YES! That young, you can prepare them like regular squash, which I decided to do so as not to waste them. THEY WERE ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS!!! I sliced them about 1/4" and sautéed them in coconut oil with just a bit of Himalayan pink salt and some freshly ground black pepper. That's all I did. I just couldn't believe they were so delicious!!! So for dinner, guess what I'm having . . . So all those plants up on the hill, I'm using for the huge yellow flowers and the small unripe pumpkin for a side dish. I had transplanted 4 of the seedlings earlier to a nice plot in my organic garden - so those I will let grow to maturity. I really don't need 30 plantings of ripe pumpkin! What a tasty surprise! You might want to try it . . . just cook them like you would in your favorite squash recipe.