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squash crown prince

fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 17,617

I am growing squashes crown prince and buffy ball for the first time. The buffy ball are growing slowly. The crown prince look like they want to take over the world. Has anyone grown this variety before? Do I stop them at a certain number of fruits or let them get on with it.? I have four plants of each, a metre apart in well manured soil, in the sunniest patch.

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  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,384

    I grew 3 crown prince last year fidget and they were indeed rampant - they grew to well over 6m!  I left them to their own devices but only had one or 2 fruit set per plant despite hand-pollinating - each was about 4kg,  so I suggest some control may be better and might produce a greater number of more manageable sized fruit.  Perhaps try that with one or two of them?  This year I also have a couple of them and am going to pinch out the main growing tip at 3m as an experiment and when side shoots develop, pinch those out after the first fruit set on each (if they do..)  In addition I have several other varieties and harrier are my best hope for the future - they are producing female flowers much closer to the centre and are supposed to be bushy and less spreading.  We shall see!  Also growing barbara butternut, autumn crown (blurb says average 5 fruit per plant and a bit smaller than c.prince) and pumpkin summer ball which I can't praise highly enough - extremely compact, incredibly productive (think courgettes!) and also store much better than I thought they would.  They are a regular here.  If no-one else with more experience chips-in, perhaps we can report back on this thread about developments/results?

    edit: Edd replied while[ I was typing, so looks like pinching out is the thing to do.

    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • Steve 309Steve 309 Posts: 2,753

    They're delicious cut up and roasted.  Don't even think of peeling them first though - they're much too hard.  In fact you might have trouble cutting them up!

  • BobTheGardenerBobTheGardener Posts: 11,384

    Too right, Steve!  I used the last one (stored from last year) in May and had to start the (very sharp!) kitchen knife off with a rubber mallet in order to make the first cut!  I slice the skin off each section completely before roasting as the skin on Crown Prince does not go soft during roasting like it does on some other varieties - rather the opposite in fact and the reason I started doing that was because I cut my gum on a sharp piece of roasted skin!

    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • fidgetbonesfidgetbones Posts: 17,617

    As there are only two of us, I guess more small, rather than a few large would be better. I seem to have lots of flowers on at the moment on the crown prince, so heres hoping they set.image

    I also planted 4 courgettes Black Forest. One eaten by slugs/snails. One not doing much. The other two producing faster than we can eat them. The Marketmore cucumbers are a bit slow so far.

  • ManorManor Posts: 1

    I love this pumpkin the best way to use it istaster taking top off scoop out seeds rub over the skin and inside with a drop of oil get some meat lamb beef or chicken cube cut up onion garlic ginger add some currie spices mix with meat put inside pumpkin put top back on cook in oven for 1 to 2hrs on 160 or 5 use the pumpkin as the cooking vessel and serve it's lovely the juice of the pumkin cooks the meat and spices you can add some coconut as well but becarefull not to put a lot of liquid as the juice is enough  I would use block coconut  

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