Back in May, I planted one, and one only, gold nugget squash plant in our backyard organic garden. Although, we waited a number of weeks before getting any squash out of the plant, once the plant did produce, we had squash after squash, coming forward in our garden,and now that we are in December, the plant still has squash for me to go out and pick.
This one plant has taken over a large part of the backyard, and not just the garden, with its long arms stretching in all directions. It has covered our mint, tomato, and other plants, and even reached outside the boundary of the yard. Just one plant, and we have had week after week of soup, pasta, risotto, and just plain gold nugget squash for our taste buds.
What we learned:
Make sure you have plenty of garden space for this squash variety to expand, because it will, and if not controlled or given enough room, could become an unwelcome resident in the neighbor's yard. We found that out, although, the neighbor made no complaint, but we did discover some missing squash on that end of the plant. Make sure you don't plant other food plants as the nugget squash will climb over them, and cover them from the sunlight. This is a dominating plant in the vegetable garden. Make sure you let each squash reach its potential in size, before cutting, and also, be careful that you don't cut the vine itself, when trying to cut the squash.
This is our first year of growing gold nugget squash in our garden. We almost lost hope in the gold nugget squash plant in the beginning, thinking that all we are getting is long green arms of the plant, but no fruit, and therefore, a waste of garden space. We thought that we should have gone with another plant. However, once it is producing fruit, the gold nugget squash produces non-stop. These squash are big, durable, and survive the heat, and the autumn coolness. I did not keep track of numbers, but I believe we have reaped at least 100 squash from this one plant, and I am going out to pick more.
