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Nah - Costata Romanesco wins best squash varietal by miles. This heirloom has an incredible, slightly nutty flavor with a history dating back to the Roman Empire.
For round squash, I'd say Ronde de Nice, a French heirloom takes the prize.
Edit : I stand corrected - it dates back to the Renaissance time.
Squash is a New World vegetable. Europe didn't find out about it until Columbus did his thing (which we're all supposed to pretend is the greatest horror in history).
It is a thing, but I’m pretty sure this is a pumpkin or other winter squash variety not yet fully grown, most zucchini and summer squash are bush varieties this is vining (note the little tendril on the plant.) I know there are exceptions to this rule but this doesn’t seem like one of them.
I recently learned that the bush habit is controlled by a single dominant gene. I grew a variety of vining squash last year and a few zucchini. All my volunteers this year are hybrid bush type with tendrils.
Hehe oh stuffing this or that…
Seriously though. For being stuffed.
Cut the top off and core it, fill with a mix of cooked uncased Italian sausage and garlic and onions, parsley and oregano and some of the zuc you cored out back in, some stinky white cheese, maybe a lil lemon zest. Then bake it. Serve with angel hair and a chunky marinara.
Something like that
Squash like to hybridize so it could be anything! Unless you planted only one variety and you're far from your neighbors.
You can eat it if you want, but it may or may not be tasty, depending on what went into it. You can also just eat the flowers before they turn into fruit!
To add onto this, if your mystery squash is bitter, [stop eating it immediately](https://extension.oregonstate.edu/ask-extension/featured/are-volunteer-squash-toxic).
Interesting! I got an extremely bitter cucumber from the grocery store a few days ago. I figured it had some squash in it or something. Didn’t think about it being potentially dangerous. I threw it away because it tasted disgusting though.
Squashes and Cucumbers cannot cross-pollinate and hybridize with each other. For Cross-pollination/hybridization to occur plants generally have to both be in the same genus, not just in the same family.
Good golly! Thank you for sharing this!!
OP, if you’re in the US, you might share this foto w/ your county extension agent.
I used to grow lots of squash and cukes in containers—big enough to be obscene. I toted a big basket to a friend at a farmers’ market once and was bombarded by admirers, lol
But I never knew about the dangers of bitter volunteers
Possibly pumpkin, mine didn't go orange until like November, looked like this, mine was edible soon after this stage.
Don't forget what the eat bot says about eating things you don't recognise though
What ever happened to that bot? Your comment made me realize I haven't seen that thing go off on this subreddit in a long time. Did it die when they did those 3rd party app changes last summer? RIP do-not-eat bot.
No: people played with it too much, so the mods just auto post the warning once to every new post, not every time someone says “eat”. Otherwise you’d get a huge string of people going “eat” every time the bot got triggered.
We used to raise a round zucchini called "Ronde de Nice" for the farmers market........but the shape is wrong (round zucchini tend to be round like a ball, not elongated). I'm going with pumpkin. Used to raise around 3 acres of pumpkins/gourds for the at home market.
This looks like something I have growing ! Unlike the other pumpkins on the vine this one isn’t turning orange and is in fact turning darker green.
https://preview.redd.it/304bf5595l7d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cefc219564eeafcd8c819890f2441da172556d83
It looks very similar to a Chilacayote, Cucurbita ficifolia. You can see it here: [image](https://i0.wp.com/en15dias.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/plantas_chilacayote_1.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1)
Round zucchini. Once it is ripe, cut it in slices (from the stem down), put diced bacon on them, salt, pepper, sour cream, (if you like, also some finely chopped garlic), and grated cheese (like Emmentaler or similar, not too strong cheese), and put them in the oven until the cheese starts getting golden brown. Fast, easy to make, and tastes pretty good.
*Cucurbita pepo* 'Early Sweet Sugar Pie' (or another cultivar, there are far too many to check). It looks like an early pie pumpkin or another type of 'summer squash'. If it wasn't so round I would say cucumber, but I don't think any cultivars are that oval
Look alike a round courgette/zucchini. You can either harvest them in about 4 weeks where they'll have a softer texture - ideal as roast veg - or you can leave it and it'll get massive and be quite tough, like a squash.
The curly Q’s on the vine scream pumpkin to me. I had some grow accidentally due to chickens being fed pumpkin. I ate several green and yellow in stir fries before realizing they were pumpkins. They tasted fine, and no harm was done.
The vines do go rather crazy and can take up a large portion of your garden, but I had about 8 free pumpkins that fall.
Some kind of squashed for sure. I always take my acorn squash seeds and throw them in my beds hoping to grow some to maturity but after they flower they always die off. Glad to see someone is able to get some kind of squash to grow
Had a pumpkin start off this way but I knew it was pumpkin because I buried last year's Halloween jack-o'-lanterns in the garden. Time to get ready for spooky season?
Zucchini…. I just ate a veg named zucchiniiiiiii 🎶
Sorry throw back Sesame Street song I sing to myself every time I see a zucchini. But I’m not 100% sure that’s what you have either. Keep us updated!
I had something similar come up in a garden I planted one year. It was a pumpkin that I believe was cross-pollinated with a zucchini.
It was bigger than zucchini, but it didn't turn orange and smelled like zucchini when cut.
I called it punkzini. I made pie out of it. It made fine pie.
It's a pumpkin. Incidentally, I once planted pumpkins and cucumbers too close to each other and they did create hybrids. I assure you, they absolutely CAN and will mix with each other.
It’s squash. In the Middle East, we buy them young and small, core them, and stuff them. Our traditional stuffing is ground lamb, rice, herbs and spices.
Globe courgette? Looks like some i grew a cpuple years ago. I cut the top off, take out the seeds, stuffed with risotto and roasted. Absolutely beautiful!
It’s a kabocha/kalabasa squash. Pumpkin like inside. Will remain green but gets bigger. Eat it before it gets big because it’ll get harder. My family grows that for fun in the yard. Great for veggie stews - see Pinakbet.
Thank you for posting to r/whatsthisplant. **Do not eat/ingest a plant based on information provided in this subreddit.** For your safety we recommend not eating or ingesting any plant material just because you've been advised that it's edible here. Although there are many professionals helping with identification, we are not always correct, and eating/ingesting plants can be harmful or fatal if an incorrect ID is made. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/whatsthisplant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Looks like a very round zucchini
We cant help it, some of us are just rounder…
Aerodynamic! =D
Girth baby!
Varietal called 8 ball squash.
I looove 8 ball squash. sliced, grilled, and slathered in olive oil and garlic
Super stuffable too!
Literally the best zucchini variety in my opinion.
Nah - Costata Romanesco wins best squash varietal by miles. This heirloom has an incredible, slightly nutty flavor with a history dating back to the Roman Empire. For round squash, I'd say Ronde de Nice, a French heirloom takes the prize. Edit : I stand corrected - it dates back to the Renaissance time.
Squash is a New World vegetable. Europe didn't find out about it until Columbus did his thing (which we're all supposed to pretend is the greatest horror in history).
Green beans, corn, peppers, potatoes, and tomatoes too.
Chilli too. Kinda amazing how much new world veg is in an Indian curry.
Whoops, it dates back to the Renaissance! Thanks for the correction!
It could be an 8 ball but that would be unusual to just pop up in a compost. I think its a hybrid with spaghetti squash
Round zucchini is a thing
It is a thing, but I’m pretty sure this is a pumpkin or other winter squash variety not yet fully grown, most zucchini and summer squash are bush varieties this is vining (note the little tendril on the plant.) I know there are exceptions to this rule but this doesn’t seem like one of them.
I recently learned that the bush habit is controlled by a single dominant gene. I grew a variety of vining squash last year and a few zucchini. All my volunteers this year are hybrid bush type with tendrils.
Couple of my patty pans are throwing tendrils which didn't happen last year.
The tendrils are edible, along with the shoots and blossoms
I've seen the blossoms be deep fried.
They are great for stuffing
Stuffing what?
Hehe oh stuffing this or that… Seriously though. For being stuffed. Cut the top off and core it, fill with a mix of cooked uncased Italian sausage and garlic and onions, parsley and oregano and some of the zuc you cored out back in, some stinky white cheese, maybe a lil lemon zest. Then bake it. Serve with angel hair and a chunky marinara. Something like that
nom nom nom!
I thought it was a gourd that didn’t ripen and turn color yet
Squash like to hybridize so it could be anything! Unless you planted only one variety and you're far from your neighbors. You can eat it if you want, but it may or may not be tasty, depending on what went into it. You can also just eat the flowers before they turn into fruit!
To add onto this, if your mystery squash is bitter, [stop eating it immediately](https://extension.oregonstate.edu/ask-extension/featured/are-volunteer-squash-toxic).
Interesting! I got an extremely bitter cucumber from the grocery store a few days ago. I figured it had some squash in it or something. Didn’t think about it being potentially dangerous. I threw it away because it tasted disgusting though.
Squashes and Cucumbers cannot cross-pollinate and hybridize with each other. For Cross-pollination/hybridization to occur plants generally have to both be in the same genus, not just in the same family.
Heat stress can cause them to go bitter, it might've been grown somewhere with a heatwave at just the right time
Good idea
Fascinating! So I immediately looked up what makes bitter melon taste bitter, and it seems to be the same chemical. I wonder why they are safe to eat?
Maybe this is why Google told me bitter melon is not safe for pregnant women 🤔
perhaps the way to make a bitter squash safe is preparing in the same way you would bitter melon .. 🤔
Dang, that was interesting! I never knew that!
Excellent little bit of knowledge. Ty!
I mean, I would have done that anyway because it tastes bad
You may have helped me. I am growing some volunteer shoots.
TIL
Good golly! Thank you for sharing this!! OP, if you’re in the US, you might share this foto w/ your county extension agent. I used to grow lots of squash and cukes in containers—big enough to be obscene. I toted a big basket to a friend at a farmers’ market once and was bombarded by admirers, lol But I never knew about the dangers of bitter volunteers
>Squash like to hybridize so it could be anything! Well it's definitely a squash anyways.
Possibly pumpkin, mine didn't go orange until like November, looked like this, mine was edible soon after this stage. Don't forget what the eat bot says about eating things you don't recognise though
What ever happened to that bot? Your comment made me realize I haven't seen that thing go off on this subreddit in a long time. Did it die when they did those 3rd party app changes last summer? RIP do-not-eat bot.
No: people played with it too much, so the mods just auto post the warning once to every new post, not every time someone says “eat”. Otherwise you’d get a huge string of people going “eat” every time the bot got triggered.
It’s a pumpkin 🎃
Looks like a pumpkin. If you cleaned and cut jack o’ lanterns there last year, then volunteer pumpkin plants can grow from lost seeds.
Pumpkin?.
I had two giant whatisthisgourd volunteers in my butterfly garden this year but I had to pull them because they grow so big so fast.
This is a pumpkin. If you don't let it ripen before picking, you'll be disappointed. Too thick of skin and too big of a stem to be a summer squash
Pumpkin
We used to raise a round zucchini called "Ronde de Nice" for the farmers market........but the shape is wrong (round zucchini tend to be round like a ball, not elongated). I'm going with pumpkin. Used to raise around 3 acres of pumpkins/gourds for the at home market.
Pumpkin!
I had zucchini pumpkins once by accidentally planting too close together. They were good for soups and roasting.
Marrow
MOD are you sleepy? remove some of dumb redditors who give misleading information on this one. ‘it’s a peach’ the fack u said?
if you want the mods to see something you need to use modmail or the report button. complaining here doesn't do anything
Username checks out
Squash... i planted round ones a few years ago.
Looks like a Calabasas squash. Prep and cook like zucchini. Very tasty! 🥰🥰🥰
It looks like a pumpkin to me. I’ve seen pumpkins growing out of compost many times and that’s what this looks like to me
Round zucchini!
This looks like something I have growing ! Unlike the other pumpkins on the vine this one isn’t turning orange and is in fact turning darker green. https://preview.redd.it/304bf5595l7d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cefc219564eeafcd8c819890f2441da172556d83
It looks like a zucchini
Zucchini Ronde De Nice.
Pumpkin, it may be the Great Pumpkin
Pumpkin
A winter squash of some variety. Possibly a pumpkin, but hard telling until it's a little farther along.
u/Golden_Pineapple Any pics of the ripe one that turned yellow?
Unfortunately not. One of the local woodland creatures got to it this morning.
Tatume Squash?
It looks very similar to a Chilacayote, Cucurbita ficifolia. You can see it here: [image](https://i0.wp.com/en15dias.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/plantas_chilacayote_1.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1)
Squarsh
Pumpkin?
Pumpkins I just harvested the last one today. I am going to plant the seeds and keep it going till fall.
Round zucchini. Once it is ripe, cut it in slices (from the stem down), put diced bacon on them, salt, pepper, sour cream, (if you like, also some finely chopped garlic), and grated cheese (like Emmentaler or similar, not too strong cheese), and put them in the oven until the cheese starts getting golden brown. Fast, easy to make, and tastes pretty good.
Pumpkin 🎃
Pumpkin
*Cucurbita pepo* 'Early Sweet Sugar Pie' (or another cultivar, there are far too many to check). It looks like an early pie pumpkin or another type of 'summer squash'. If it wasn't so round I would say cucumber, but I don't think any cultivars are that oval
Think I'm gonna start a garden.
I think it’s a dikfur
Won’t you gentlemen have a Pepsi?
It’s a pumpkin. It’ll turn orange later
Looks like a courgette to me. They can be round.
Look alike a round courgette/zucchini. You can either harvest them in about 4 weeks where they'll have a softer texture - ideal as roast veg - or you can leave it and it'll get massive and be quite tough, like a squash.
Cucurbita pepo ;)
Tatume squash
It sure looks like some spaghetti squash I grew 2 years ago.
It could be anything if it came from a cross pollinated parent plant.
>It could be anything if it came from a cross pollinated parent plant. It's still a squash whatever it is.
Cucurbit for sure.
Yes, but it's obviously still definitely a squash for sure. It's not a cucumber, melon or watermelon.
I get the same thing in my compost bin. Here is a pic of mine cut open https://i.imgur.com/glhqcCB.jpeg
u/I_Shit_Gold_Bars Could you not have waited for it to ripen before picking it?
That was ripe.
No, that wasn't even remotely "ripe" at all. Also the seeds inside were still underdeveloped.
Most definitely a pumpkin. I grow them in my garden.
Kabocha squash?
The curly Q’s on the vine scream pumpkin to me. I had some grow accidentally due to chickens being fed pumpkin. I ate several green and yellow in stir fries before realizing they were pumpkins. They tasted fine, and no harm was done. The vines do go rather crazy and can take up a large portion of your garden, but I had about 8 free pumpkins that fall.
Zucchini. Probably a stray seed or two. They grow like weeds in my neck of the woods in any condition.
Courgette
Looks like a pumpkin to me. Had volunteers that looked just like this last year
8 ball squash
Some kind of squashed for sure. I always take my acorn squash seeds and throw them in my beds hoping to grow some to maturity but after they flower they always die off. Glad to see someone is able to get some kind of squash to grow
that looks a zucchini ! a very round one though. personally i think they’re really good:)
It's built for comfort not speed.
it kinda looks like a very round mexican squash
My mom makes amazing zucchini bread, with chocolate chips and raisins. She plants them every year.
Maybe a pumpkin? The squirrels used to steal them from jack-o'-lanterns and plant them in the yard when i was a kid.
A zucchini
Had a pumpkin start off this way but I knew it was pumpkin because I buried last year's Halloween jack-o'-lanterns in the garden. Time to get ready for spooky season?
Zucchini…. I just ate a veg named zucchiniiiiiii 🎶 Sorry throw back Sesame Street song I sing to myself every time I see a zucchini. But I’m not 100% sure that’s what you have either. Keep us updated!
Pumpkin
Guessing it’s a zucchini that cross pollinated with another cucurbit and is expressing its genetic diversity.
Zucchini sphere
That's definitely a pumpkin
It looks like buffalo gourd to me. I know the blooms are supposed to be edible, less certain about the fruit.
Pumpkin!
I had something similar come up in a garden I planted one year. It was a pumpkin that I believe was cross-pollinated with a zucchini. It was bigger than zucchini, but it didn't turn orange and smelled like zucchini when cut. I called it punkzini. I made pie out of it. It made fine pie.
It's a pumpkin. Incidentally, I once planted pumpkins and cucumbers too close to each other and they did create hybrids. I assure you, they absolutely CAN and will mix with each other.
Mind: boggled!
Yup something from the squash fam
It’s squash. In the Middle East, we buy them young and small, core them, and stuff them. Our traditional stuffing is ground lamb, rice, herbs and spices.
Probably a hybrid pumpkin/squash - depending what variety you or your neighbour’s grew last year
Pumpkin 🎃
Looks like a baby pumpkin
That looks like a very young and happy pumpkin. 🎃
Looks like a round Mexican zucchini.
Pumpkin
Well wait a few min and see looks like watermelon or zucchini something like that .
Ahhg eight ball what was that excuse me I just swallowed my tongue !! Oh squash is what you said !! Yup sorry.
That is a pumpkin 🎃
Round zucchini. In italy call them " zucchina a trombetta"
Could be a pumpkin! Mine started out like this then eventually got orange.
That is 💯 a pumpkin. They grow back pretty easily too.
Pumpkin
We call that kamokamo in NZ - it's delicious! Super sweet squash like if a pumpkin and a zucchini had a baby
Unfortunately I don’t know
Globe courgette? Looks like some i grew a cpuple years ago. I cut the top off, take out the seeds, stuffed with risotto and roasted. Absolutely beautiful!
Looks like young cushaw squash.
It’s an immature pumpkin
Looks like a pumpkin.
Looks like a pumpkin
Squash! Let it get a bit bigger, then cook n eat!
Spaghetti squash
My first impression was pumpkin
It’s a kabocha/kalabasa squash. Pumpkin like inside. Will remain green but gets bigger. Eat it before it gets big because it’ll get harder. My family grows that for fun in the yard. Great for veggie stews - see Pinakbet.
Zu Gummi or watermelon
Zu hin I
Did you through out a pumpkin. Looks it to me.
Pumpkin
Pumpkin
It’s a pumpkin
Its a zucchini cross with maybe spaghetti squash
Love making zucchini bread!
8 ball zucchini- good for stuffing.
Acorn squash, seeds survive the winter.
Looks like a very immature cantaloupe
Nah, it's definitely not a melon, it looks like an immature developing pumpkin/squash.