Giant cucumber?

LOL.......gosh I have no clue. First off, she has a really green thumb and her gardens are a thing of beauty. She's also no slouch as to seeds, she used to work for a major garden seed company. She bought this from a reputable mail order seedsman, emailed them and asked them if they could help her identify what they had mis-labeled, and has had no response to date. Regardless what it is, she is just growing them at this point to see how mammoth they can get and out of curiosity. We both agreed you'd prolly have to harvest it with a chain saw. The crows love it and she has this big cage over it that the fruit has already outgrown. We are just both really curious.

I have no idea either. Am not familiar with the Hungarian, but it is suppose to grow in the 100 lb group.

I think the seed grower goofed on this one. This is likely the case when the seed came from a hybrid strain. I have had a few times growing somethings (eg.squash, peppers) with very strange results. I saved those seeds thinking that they were heirbloom, but actually not. For example, one time I collect seeds from one nice oval shaped sweet pepper which I bought from a farmer's market. The same seeds produced 4 different shapes and 3 different colors of peppers. One of them resembled sweet banana pepper, but it tasted 10 time hotter than a Jalapino pepper. My point is offspings of a hybrid seed can be so wild beyond your belief, and this may be what happened to this monster squash.

Hungarian Mammoth is an old time squash/pumpkin used for cattle feed. Unlikely to have any hybrid version. It is a monster squash with colors listed as grey to blue. I cannot not find a photo or physical description so I am curious, what makes you think that this is not it? Does anyone have a photo or physical description of Hungarian Mammoth?

Thanks everyone, especially farmerdill. I was hoping you'd see this post. I searched the inet for a good pic of Hungarian Mammoth, and couldn't find one.......and I'm not sure it isn't. I just went by her description of what she thought it was supposed to look like and she just said Hungarian Winter and unless I am not remembering right, she said it wasn't supposed to be green. I would call this dark enough to qualify for blue and hard to tell at what stage of ripeness it is. Unless you are talking about pumpkins or pumpkin-like squash forty or fifty pound squash really should limit the possibilities. I'll relay this on to her. It's sort of embarassing because I'm supposed to be a professional grower and I was totally clueless on this one. LOL.

Hungarian Winter type squash aka Hungarian Giant are similar to an Atlantic Giant pumpkin -- roundish, flattened, somewhat ribbed, much smaller of course, but the same look, and a blue-gray color with perhaps little patches of orange-tan.

Here's a really awful picture - all I could find. But I remember the description and even an image from some past seed catalog, but can't begin to tell you which one or what year - when you get catalogs from 40-50 companies each year, they kind of blur together. Only a vague memory of someplace from the PNW, perhaps Territorial?

Here is a link that might be useful: Really bad image of a Hungarian Winter

Could it be one of these?

http://www.freewebs.com/egvga/giantmarrows.htm

That looks like a gigantic 'Long Pie' pumpkin. They have that same shape. I don't know if they get that big though. I got this one from a friend and it started off the same dark green and is now turning orange.
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Remy

I looked up giant cukes, but they seem to be quite a bit more skinny for their length, and deeply ribbed.

Wow!

A definite possibility. Long of Naples is a butternut type ( C. moschata) in the 35 lb class. Not usually considered a monster squash. But it matches the photos better than anything I have seen. If it has hard solid vines as opposed to the hollow vines of C. pepo and C. maxima, that may be it or a cross. Some of the banana types will get big but the coloring is wrong. They are C. maximas so could be crossed with a bigger C. maxima.
Another test, Hungarian Mammoth is touted as one of the few naked seed squash. I have no idea whether it is the same squash as Hungarian Giant, but I don't see that claim for Hungarian Giant.

Farmer, Long of Naples does not have hard solid vines. I compared the leaves in her picture to pictures of my own. They are exactly the same. I'd bet its a LON squash, after comparing the leaves. Same pattern, same white marbling through the veins.

Pitcom.....with the name you gave, I was able to find several pictures on the web of Long of Naples squashes. I think you have correctly identified them and I appreciate your input very much. Just passed it along to my friend. Thanks

We harvested the squash today after a light frost. Five beautiful ones and weighed and measured the largest one at 48" exactly and one hundred and five pounds. The other four were not far behind.

All I can say is YIKES!! I'm jealous...I thought I did well to get seven butternut squash ripened and truly tasty. Then again, I don't come anywhere near having enough property to need any kind of John Deere item as an accessory LOL!
Angie

Just when I think I am getting a grip on this veggie gardening thing, you all come up with something like this! Wow! And it's a moschata too, so resistant to SVB, right? Calliope, I hope you get to taste this thing, and will report back to us if it's good eating. If anyone is wondering, I found the seed for this big mama on the Baker Creek Website.