Cucurbita pepo Seeds | Green Pattypan Pumpkin
.jpg "Green Pattypan Squash (Cucurbita pepo)")
LATIN NAME: Cucurbita pepo
COMMON NAME: Green Pattypan Squash, Summer Squash
Plant Profile
The pattypan is the squash that looks like a toy top: a flat, disc-like body with wavy, scalloped rims and a small cap of stem at the centre. The green type keeps a pale-green rind and tender, nutty flesh when picked young, and it is one of the oldest New World squash forms, grown long before the smooth zucchini took over the market row.
Where a zucchini is a cylinder, the pattypan is a compressed disc with radial flutes, a shape so distinct it has its own cultivar group, the scallop type, inside Cucurbita pepo. The bush plants throw large, lobed leaves and golden, funnel-shaped male flowers that open before the female flowers, which sit on a short, swollen ovary. Pick the fruit while it is small and the rind stays tender enough to eat whole.
The scallop group was grown by Indigenous farmers of eastern North America centuries before European contact, alongside the crookneck and the mammoth winter squash, all within Cucurbita pepo. The species was domesticated in Mexico more than eight thousand years ago, and the pattypan’s fluted shape is a trait selected early and kept by seed savers because the small fruits suit a single meal.
Because the plant sets separate male and female flowers, the golden male blossoms can be picked and eaten while the female flowers fatten into fruit, giving two harvests from one vine. The blossoms fry crisp in batter or stuff with cheese, a use shared with other pepo squashes and the pumpkin.
Science & Biotechnology
Picked small, the pattypan is mostly water and a little sugar, with the carotenoid and vitamin load that marks the species. Its value is texture more than chemistry, which is why it is treated as a vegetable, not a supplement.
The green rind carries carotenoids and a useful amount of vitamin C, and the flesh is low in the bitter cucurbitacins that defend wild gourds. The seeds are white when the fruit is young and turn tan as it matures; eat the squash before the seeds harden and the rind toughens. A bitter fruit, rare in this type, should be discarded.
Uses & Benefits
The pattypan’s shape is more than pretty. Cut into wedges it cooks evenly, and the thin rind means no peeling when the fruit is young.
Slice small green fruits into wedges and sauté them in olive oil with garlic until the edges brown, or steam them whole and dress with lemon. The cap of a larger fruit lifts off to make a cup for stuffing with herbed grain or meat, then bakes until tender. Halved and grilled, the scalloped edge crisps into a shape that holds a spoon of salsa.
Fruits no bigger than a walnut make the best pickle; pack them in a jar with vinegar, dill, and whole spice and they hold their shape and colour. Because the harvest is continuous, a few plants supply the table and the jar through the warm season without a glut. The scalloped edge shows through the glass, which is why the pattypan pickle looks as good as it tastes on a cold plate.
Growing from Seed
This is a frost-tender bush squash that wants heat and bright light. Start it under cover so the young plant never meets cold, then set it out once the bed is warm.
Move seedlings to the garden when they carry three true leaves and stand about twelve centimetres tall, setting them at the surface of a mound of composted ground and never deeper than the pot level. The stem rots where buried, so keep the crown at the soil line. A warm mulch speeds establishment in districts with short, cool summers.
Give each bush plant about sixty centimetres of clear ground in every direction so the leaves dry between waterings and mildew stays away. Water at the base and pick the fruit small and often to keep the plant flowering. A side feed of balanced liquid every few weeks keeps the bush cropping until frost. In a short-season district, a cloche over the young plant buys the warmth the bush needs to set its first disc of fruit.
Our Take
The pattypan proves a squash can be a conversation piece and a dinner. For more from the same genus, sow the Pumpkin Seed Big Max and the Cucurbita Pepo seed SUMMER SQUASH, or the hard-shelled Lagenaria siceraria seed for craft gourds.
Related Reading
Gardeners who grow Green Pattypan Squash often pair it with these related subjects: