Did you plant any other varieties of squash? Perhaps something from the C. moschata family? Also, for the Delicata, did you grow it yourself? From purchased seed? Saved seed? I have a few idea, but need the answers to my questions to help narrow it down.

It looks a lot like Americana Tonda Squash, but that is a C. Pepo. Maybe you had a stray seed in your pack.

Grew the Delicata from purchased seed. No other varieties were planted, although we had a butternut squash plant show up more than 200 feet away.

Probably just got sent the wrong item.

There are quite a few C. moschatas and a few C. pepos that look like that. I'm guessing either a stray seed was mixed in with the others, which would have been from an error that occurred when the wholesaler was harvesting, processing and packaging seed, or you have some weird volunteer that popped up like your butternut squash did and the volunteer could have been from cross-pollinated seed from some other year. The fact that you describe it as very hard makes me lean towards it being a C. moschata, though there are other types of winter squash that develop very hard shells. You might want to go to the website of Baker Creek Heirloom Seed and look at their winter squash selection. I can think of at least 3 or 4 varieties that sell that look a lot like ours, though maybe none look exactly and precisely the same.

Whatever they are, they are cute! I'm all about cute.

I have some mysterious vining plants in my garden too. But there' so much unwanted grass and weeds growing that I almost didn't notice. It is a jungle. I have no idea what or where this came from...and the are all over the place.

Carol, I've seen plants which don't seem to turn that darker green before turning buff and within the same variety I've seen plants whose fruit do make that change before turning buff. Sometimes the latter will turn a little darker tan when they mature.

If you can do a fingernail test on the skin, and you don't puncture it, you can harvest. There's nothing wrong with harvesting early as long as the fruit is mature. You'd be surprised, too, just how delicious some of those early harvested squash are!

Looking at the pictures from cochiseinokc, my guess is that is a Delicata cross. Delicata is a c. pepo and some of those hard shelled ornamental gourds are also c. pepo. It'll be interesting to see how these are cooked.

Keep in mind, that if it's a cross, the cross didn't occur in your garden. It occurred in in the seed grow out, from which the seed company's seed was obtained. Don't be too hard on the seed company either. These things do happen, even to the best of seedsmen. Some companies farm out varieties to be grown out for seed, contracting with individuals to do this. One never knows when some "oops" will occur.

Carol, Yes, some years I do get mature winter squash in August, and harvest them and use them. Their flavor is better if you cure them a bit just like you do with the ones harvested in autumn. Like George said, the thumbnail test tells you if they are ready to harvest.

George, I am thinking it is a cross too because it looks enough like Delicata to have some Delicata genetics but not enough like anything else for me to think it is solely a different variety.

I had a butternut cross one year that looked surprisingly like Cochise's photo except the fruit were slightly more elongated, and I left them on the vine until they turned buff. Whatever they were, they weren't butternut but their flavor once they were matured and cured was great. I just always assumed I got some sort of crossed seed in my Waltham Butternut seed packet that year. That was probably around 2012 and none of the other seed from that packet has given me anything else odd---just the plain old Waltham Butternut I expected when I sowed the seed.

Dawn

His squash is probably a cross, but I thought it could also be a stray seed from this plant.

Americana Tonda Squash

I may also have some crosses because I have a lot of different shapes and some very large squash. I crawled around through the vines and did the fingernail test and picked MOST of the ones that passed the test. I broke a couple of the stems off accidentally so probably limited their keeping quality. It really won't matter since the 14 I harvested came to a total wight of 71.98 pounds. There are still plenty more out there and some are very dark green and the size and shape of the normal small size Seminole that I grew last year. The smallest one I picked today was 3.1 pounds and the largest was 7.82. I weighed them all and wiped them down with vinegar.

Thanks Dawn and George for the info. I knew about the fingernail test but wondered about picking this early.

I'm glad they have good flavor. That, at least, makes them worth growing, no matter what their name is. That's a nice harvest you have there, Cochise!