Squash business

We sell our squash at all stages of development; when they are tiny and still have the flower attached we sell them as calabacitas (which translates from Spanish to 'little squash'), when they are still small but the flower has dropped off we sell them as baby squash, then as toddler, then as adult. As the squash gets bigger it gets less tender, the seeds inside get larger, leaving less of the flesh; thus the larger the squash is, the lower the price. When the squash gets very large it is not as tasty.

Here are some of the squash varieties we have in our fields: clockwise from the upper right corner: Sunburst, G-star, Starship, Goldrush yellow zucchini, Black Raven green zucchini, and yellow crookneck.

An example of a calabacita: a baby Starship with the flower still attached.

Unlike many of the most common flowers where the male and female reproductive parts exist in the same blossom, squash plants produce two different types of flowers: the male and the female. The female flowers have pistils in the center and produce squash at their base. The male flowers have stamens in the center. Bees visit both types of squash flowers and when they fly from a male blossom on one plant to a female blossom on another plant, the pollen from the stamen of the male flower pollinates the pistil of the female blossom. 

We harvest both the male and female flowers; the female flowers come with baby squash attached (these are the calabacitas). The male flowers are just "squash blossoms". The stamens of different squash varieties generally all look about the same but the pistils look different depending upon the variety of the squash. The pictures below are examples of the differences between pistils:

We use examination gloves to protect the delicate calabacitas.

At the Madrona market on Friday we sold male squash blossoms. The customers were very excited about the squash blossoms and many volunteered how they were planning to prepare them; many were going to batter them up and fry them, which can be done with bread crumbs, cracker crumbs or a flower and egg mixture; of these some were planning to stuff them first: with goat cheese, mozzarella, beans and rice or nut butters; others like them raw on salads.

I have never had stuffed, battered and fried squash blossoms but it sounds delicious! Of the ways I have tried the blossoms prepared, my favorite have been in a salad with balsamic vinegar and in a quesadilla; the squash blossom quesadilla I got on the street in Puebla, Mexico and it was one of the best meals I had on that trip.