Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year! Coming soon to a movie theatre near you. A blockbuster motion picture - "The Sword in the Squash". An epic tale of Christmas disaster and redemption. Well actually, I have this lovely big home grown Sibley (Hubbard) Squash that it is my chore to cook for Xmas dinner. I rashly planted my biggest kitchen knife into the thing, and now it is stuck! I am contemplating splitting wedges, a Dremel tool, my chainsaw etc. Oh well, I expect my wife will sort me out. Hope you have a great holiday and I look forward to you all posing some interesting horticultural and botanical enigmas and information in 2015.
Assistance of an heir to Uther Pendragon clearly indicated. You may be amused by this---see under 'Roasting---Cons/Danger'. http://marymakesdinner.typepad.com/marymakesdinner/2011/09/a-few-ways-to-cook-spaghetti-squash.html Ha! A flying Hubbard would be an exciting scene in your movie. No doubt the one following it---when your wife views the path of destruction left by the airborne Hubbard---would be even more action-packed. A comely squash! Hope that its taste equals its pleasing appearance. Best wishes to you, too, Lysichiton!
I love your sense of humor. Who even knows what splitting wedges are these days but they do sound logical. I pack the center of mine with Sage flavored sausage, brown sugar and or a bit of maple syrup. The very best of the season to you and yours! ;) barb
All the best to you, too, Lisichiton! Your posts are always so relaxing, keep this way! I had the same dilemma when my machete got stuck in my winter squash several years ago, when I was still an inexperienced squash grower. I can't recall what I did to free it, a chainsaw sounds good, though.
A powerful and poignant piece commemorating King Arthur's squashing of the Saxons at Badon. Deeply moving; also nutty and delicious. My personal record is two knives and a cleaver stuck--which starts to look intenitonal and disturbing. Solved (once again) by our old friend the hammer.
This shell hardness comes from the 'New England Blue' hubbard squash (NEB). And so your crossbreed might have a mother line with NEB. I open such fruits with an equatorial cut and turn it around inch per inch after a blow of the mallet onto the knife back. A crossbred 'Boston Marrow' pollinated by the NEB has not that hard shell, but every crossbred NEB has it. I have enlarged the NEB with the selfed 'Atlantic Giant' 1385.5 Jutras 07 from Rhode Island and so created the Cucurbita maxima fusiformis 'Rhode Island Blue Giant' with semihard shell but very thick and good flesh.
Ludwig, I am not a squash expert, just an enthusiastic eater thereof. Here is the description of the Sibley Squash as given by Seed Savers Exchange, where I purchase the seeds: " Obtained from an elderly woman in Van Dinam, IA who had grown it for more than 50 years in Missouri. Introduced by Hiram Sibley & Co. of Rochester, New York in 1887. Superb Banana squash with thick sweet flesh. James J. H. Gregory found it simply magnificent. Hard-rinded, inversely pear shaped, excellent keeper. 110 days." The one in the photo was indeed eaten for Xmas dinner and it was almost like eating candy. They improve with storage.
Oh, "Pike´s Peak" this Sibley squash variety is named. http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbro...&month=1303&week=c&msg=h4xOJHo5xAyjhhicVYXnBg "superb banana squash" is nicely said, but mother fruit of this 19th century cross must be the New England Blue Hubbard Squash pollinated by a babana squash...maybe the North Georgia banana squash. I can do that cross this season, then we´ll see... But Van Dinam seems to be a conundrum.
Dinam is the Tamil word for day. Dinamo is the slavic word for dynamo. Van stands before names in the Netherlands. In 19th century many people from the Netherlands came to Iowa: Jacob Van Der Zee, The Coming of the Hollanders to Iowa, 9, The Iowa Journal of History and Politics 528, 528 (1911) Also many Germans came with a ship named "Didam" across the Atlantic to Iowa! This ship had the name from the city Didam in Gelderland Netherlands.
I know the family of the Botanist Berthold Carl Seemann´s brother Emil Seemann in Missouri. Emil cofounded the botanical garden in St. Louis, and the whole family Seemann from Hannover Germany was engaged to make this botanical garden really important for the US. Seemanns published the botany magazine Bonplandia over decades...and it might have been the best botanical journal around the globe in the 19th century. I think, that the Sibley squash 'Pike´s Peak' might have been grown over 50 years by an elder lady in St. Louis. By the way: my little son is named Bertold Carl Ammer and he wants to have ABC behind plants, he bred.
Name: Katherine Dinam. Birth: abt 1890 location. Residence: 1930 - city, St Louis (Independent City), Missouri
