Pool Squash Shark: One Ball & Eight Ball Squash

That will be the one ball in the side bed pocket and the eight ball in the corner pocket for the game. Rack ’em up, and let’s play again.

I can not resist a novelty plant. I really, really can’t. You give me a bizarre story or just a bizarre looking plant and my wallet is in my hand before you can say “Master Card or Visa”. To be perfectly honest, most of the time, novelty plants don’t live up to the promise. They are the plant industry’s equivalent to those little ads you see in the back of magazines that promise to teach you to hypnotize women for your own entirely unethical reasons or send you directions for your very own hovercraft (batteries and materials and physics not included).

But, despite this firm knowledge, when I saw the “One Ball Squash” and the “Eight Ball Squash” in the Park Seed catalog, I was sold. Maybe this time it would work. Maybe this time, they would be really cool.

Now, I have preface this story with the fact that I seem to have a vine borer resort in my backyard. I swear, it is the equivalent of a vine borer Disneyland. I plant a squash type plant, vine borers buy plane tickets to visit the magical land of Hanna’s Garden. I guess what I am trying to say is that historically, squash plants don’t last too long in my garden.

But I am a big fan of zucchinis. I grew up feasting on a great many baseball bat size zucchinis. (Then I started watching the Food Channel and I learned that zucchinis aren’t really suppose to get that big. *shrug* Live and learn.) I still love zucchini

Anyhoo, I ALWAYS try to grow zucchini but the whole vine borer situation interferes and I end up trading tomatoes for other gardeners zucchini. This is a badge of shame for a gardener, seeing how everyone else is bitching about what to do with too many zucchinis.

So, back to the main point. I bought them and figured that they would follow all the rest and die a slow, brown, painful (for me) death. And I must say, I have been pleasantly surprised. I don’t know if they opened the vine borer equivalent to Epcot or if I just got lucky, but my pool ball squash have done amazingly well.

All plants are healthy and lush and producing like champs. I think I will soon have so many growing that I may even have the ability to trade my novelty squash on the gardener black vegetable market.

Don’t know if they are a better variety or what, but for right now, the One Ball and Eight Ball Squash are going on my growing next year list.