Cucurbita pepo var. patissonina
Patisson
Common names: Bishop's hat, UFO pumpkin, Scallop pumpkin
At a glance
- Light
- Full sun
- Spacing
- 80 cm, rows 100 cm
- Lifespan
- Annual
- Sowing
- Apr–May
- Harvest
- Jul–Oct
- Hardiness
- Cold damage below 2 °C
- Water need
- High
- For children
- Well suited
Photo: Rudolphous · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source
This description was machine-translated.
Description
The Patisson is a delicate summer pumpkin with a wavy UFO shape, resembling a small bishop's hat perched on the bed. When harvested young, the flesh tastes tender and nutty, similar to zucchini, and is well suited for stuffing or steaming. The plant grows bushy and bears fruit from July through October.
Care instructions
Start seedlings indoors in April on a windowsill, then transplant them outdoors after the last frost (mid‑May, week 20) to a warm, sunny spot with plenty of compost. Water in the morning at the base of the plant, never over the leaves, and mulch the soil to prevent drying. Harvest the fruits when they are 5 to 8 cm in diameter; this keeps them tender and encourages the plant to produce more.
The care notes were machine-translated from German.
Garden year
SowingApr–May
HarvestJul–Oct
Germination
- Soil temperature
- from 12 °C, ideally 25 °C
- Days to sprout
- 5 to 10 days
- Light
- Sprouts in light or dark
- Sowing depth
- 2 cm
- How to start
- Start indoors, then plant out
Soil & site
Soil pH
Soil type
loamy, humus-rich, well-drained, nutrient-rich
Patty pan squash likes loose, deep and humus-rich loamy soil that holds water well but never tends towards waterlogging. If your pH is below 6, lime lightly before planting; improve light sandy soils beforehand with mature compost.
Cucurbits (cucumber, pumpkin, courgette) are heavy feeders; give them plenty of compost and a break of about 4 years on the same bed.
Feeding
Heavy feeder
Months
Mar–Jul
In spring, work mature compost or well-rotted farmyard manure shallowly into the planting spot. When planting in May, horn shavings go shallowly into the soil. During fruit growth in summer, as a heavy feeder, feed several times with compost or nettle liquid feed. Alternatively, patty pan squash thrives directly on a mature compost heap.
Overwintering
Patty pan squash is an annual and dies off at the first frost. It cannot be overwintered; harvest the ripe fruit beforehand. For your own seed, wash the seeds of a fully ripened fruit, dry them well and store them cool and dark, then raise them indoors from mid-April and plant out after the Ice Saints.
Propagation
Methods
- From seed
Patty pan squash is grown exclusively from seed. For an early harvest, raise the seeds indoors from April: place one seed each about 2 to 3 cm deep in an individual 8 to 10 cm pot of seed compost, pointed end down (that is where the root emerges). At 20 to 24 °C the seeds germinate in 5 to 14 days. After germination, put the pots somewhat cooler and brighter so the plants stay compact. After the Ice Saints (mid-May), plant them about 80 to 120 cm apart in a full-sun, wind-sheltered spot with humus-rich, well-drained soil. As an alternative to raising indoors, direct sowing outdoors also works from the end of May to the end of June: place 2 to 3 seeds in each planting spot and later pull out the weaker seedlings. You collect your own seed by letting individual fruits ripen fully until the skin is hard, taking out the seeds, washing them and drying them for several days in an airy, dry place. Note: squashes are cross-pollinators; the seed stays true to type only with open-pollinated (non-F1) varieties and even then only if no other Cucurbita pepo variety flowers nearby (otherwise hand pollination or a large distance is needed). With F1 varieties, collecting seed is not worthwhile, because the offspring do not come true to type.
Companion planting
Good neighbors
legume family (Fabaceae)
Beans and peas enrich the soil with nitrogen, which cucurbits, as heavy feeders, can make good use of.
For example PeaPole beanBroad beanSnow peaWrinkled peaRunner bean and 35 more species in the catalogue
Source: classic companion planting (DACH-Gartenpraxis)
Rather not
nightshade family (Solanaceae)
You should avoid planting potato and cucumber together because they share disease pathogens such as leaf and brown rot and stand in each other's way as strong feeders.
For example TomatoSweet pepperCocktail tomatoEggplantCape gooseberryChili and 13 more species in the catalogue
Source: basic crop-rotation rule
Companion planting is partly traditional gardening lore. Where the reason is known, it is given.
Some of these explanations were machine-translated.
For your garden
Grow Patisson yourself
Gartenkern tells you when frost is coming, when to sow and when to harvest, for your location.
Free, no time limit
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