Musquee de Provence - Variety Show

It has been quite instructive for us to go through the process of cutting back on the crops and the varieties within those crops over the past couple of growing years.  Yes, I do recognize that it has been bittersweet.  It has been much easier to manage fewer crops and varieties (with all of their differing requirements) and I have to admit that this has rejuvenated some of my enjoyment for growing.  On the other hand, I do miss having the variety too.

But, getting back to the main theme.  Despite the wide range of vegetable varieties we have enjoyed growing in the past, we have forced ourselves to make choices.  For example, we allowed ourselves only ONE pie pumpkin variety this year (note: we do not grow ornamental pumpkins - though a pie pumpkin can serve as an ornamental if you want).  In the past we've grown as many eight varieties in one season and we've cycled through a few over the years.  So, I estimate we probably have grown about a dozen different kinds at the Genuine Faux Farm.

And, the one left standing in 2022 (and probably for years to come) is Musquee de Provence.

This heirloom variety has been an anchor for pumpkin production at the Genuine Faux Farm since 2015 and shows up on and off prior to that.  It actually made our top varieties list as early as 2012 (the year the photo shown above was taken).

Musquee de Provence starts off as a dark green color and turns to an orange-tan shade.  We like to pull in the fruit at the point when the "ground-side" of the squash show that orange-tan color.  However, if weather threatens, we have successfully pulled them in when they are green.  The fruit will turn increasingly tan during the curing process.

Full disclosure - our reason for pulling them in has had to do with many years of heavy Fall rains at our farm.  We did find that sitting in wet fields resulted in our losing many fruit - and since we did not want to tolerate that, we brought them in with good success.  The advertised days to maturity from seed is 110 to 120 days, which typically gives us a mid-September harvest around here.

I suppose you want a fun fact for our other French heirloom pie pumpkin?  This one supposedly comes from southern France and was named for its distinctive pumpkin odor.  Yes - it smells good!  The rough translation to Engish is that Musquee means musky.  But, I am not sure that is an entirely accurate description of the fragrance.

Musquee de Provence has also been marketed as "Fairy Tale" - though I am not entirely certain that the strains are completely interchangeable.  

These pumpkins are a c.moschata (solid stem) squash and their vines can get fairly long.  If you can manage to give them a longer growing season, they will reward you with multiple fruit sets.  In 2021, we had a long Fall and harvested two batches of full sized pumpkins from one set of vines.  Now, before you think they set NEW pumpkins after we harvested the first set, let me clarify.  Typically, there will be smaller fruit that were set later in the season that do not mature by the time cold weather sets in.  In this case, we had good pollinator presence through the whole year AND plenty of time for the healthy vines to keep on growing out fruit that were set late.

Pumpkin size can range from 8 to 35 pounds.  Our average tends to be around 12 pounds when you include the late set, smaller fruit.  The seed cavity is relatively small and the fruits are very dense.  The meat is a deep orange to red-orange color.  You can almost make a pie out of them without adding any other spices - they are that good.

If they have a downside, it was that they were too big for us to use with our CSA - so we typically sold the larger ones outside of the CSA.  On the other hand, they store well.  They look wonderful as a kitchen centerpiece and you can easily freeze the excess in freezer bags for later use.

We typically start Musquee de Provence plants in trays and transplant them into the field between May 20 and June 5 on our farm (depending on field conditions).  We like planting them 18 inches in row and five feet between rows.  Most years, we run drip irrigation early to get them started and later during very dry periods.  However, if you don't do much irrigation beyond what it takes to get plants started, you should do fine with this variety.

With all squash, we prefer to split squash rows up with flower rows, such as zinnia, borage, calendula and other flowers.  It doesn't hurt to have some shorter season squash (or cucumbers) nearby to get squash bees accustomed to being in the area by the time these vines are ready for pollinators.  We sometimes put nasturtiums in the row with Musquee, but we don't find this to be as necessary for solid stem squash (c.moschata). 

Like most solid stem squash, the biggest issues for us have been grassy or aggressive weeds near the root zone and wet conditions after fruit set.  We get an average of 0.85 marketable fruit per row foot planted.  

We like to let the fruit cure for a couple of months and we find their taste improves as they age.  Typically, the tan-orange coloration is a good indicator that the fruit has cured and is reaching its peak for taste.