Germinating squash seed question

[Zootal]

Someone recently asked a question about growing peppers (was it peppers?) from seeds in a pepper fruit. So, my question is similar, but about squash. I have a squash sitting on my desk that is unusual and strange looking. I want to plant the seeds and see what grows from it. My question is - will the seeds grow if I just take them out of the squash and stick them in the ground when the weather warms up? Or do they need to be removed from the squash and dry for a while? I know that latter method works, as I've done it before. Can you plant seeds directly from squash into the garden?

[enigma]

"Zootal" wrote in news:FNydne9yvYB0_QfanZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

yes, you can do that too. we have keeper pumpkins. i store them in the basement root cellar & any left when the garden soil warms up just get deposited into the pumpkins area of the garden. the seeds from the ones we ate get planted out there a bit more neatly, well, the ones i don't eat anyway. you can dry the seeds of gourds or squash/pumpkins, or just plant them fresh. as long as the fruit they came from was ripe & your soil is good (& warm enough), they should grow & produce something. might not resemble what the seed came from, a particularly noticable thing in gourds ;) BTW, one of my deposited pumpkins last summer produced two very distinctly different types of plants. one set had rounded leaves & small white pumpkins & the other had pointier leaf edges & large day-glo yellow pumpkins. both types are tasty & not too watery, but i don't know what they are crosses of. i had planted 6 types the year before... lee

[Zootal]

Tnx, that is what I needed to know. My acorn squash crosses grew 6-8 different oddball varieties last year. This year I'm going to grow a bunch of these just to see what I get. I'm also growing some purchased seeds to ensure that I actually get something edible, just in case. Mama likes yellow crookneck, I like scallop, everyone loves zuccinni. I don't want to end up with 10 different shapes and sizes of blue hubbard that no one really likes :-)

[Pat Kiewicz]

Never going to get a Hubbard out of a summer squash/acorn mish-mash. Two different species involved (C. pepo vs C. maxima).

Now, you could end up with a hard-shelled, nasty bitter thing if one of your neighbor's was growing the right (wrong) type of gourds. One bite of one of those will cure you of seed-saving unknown crosses. (Years later, I can still remember... *shudder* ...)

Cross pollination in cucurbits (probably too much information):

links to CROSS POLLINATION IN CUCURBITS