Yellow Crookneck Squash

Yellow crookneck squash offers a sweet, buttery harvest and they are easy to grow

Yellow crookneck squash (Mike Goad) Pixabay

Yellow crookneck is an annual summer squash, close cousin to zucchini, straightneck, and scallop squash.

Yellow crookneck squash plants

Yellow crookneck squash plants have very large leaves with bristles on the underside. The stems are tubular and also have bristles. Each plant may take up 3 to 4 square feet. The fruit is bright yellow (making it easy to find, come harvest time) with thin skin that may be smooth or bumpy and a hook at the stem end. Yellow squashes without the hook are called straightneck.

Crookneck yellow squash plant (Sheila Brown) needpix.com

​Unlike squashes and melons that spread vines around above ground, yellow crookneck squash are bushes that do their spreading in the soil. They have taproots, which may go down 30”, but the overall root systems are shallow and may spread out 2 to 4 feet in all directions.

Squash plants produce both male and female flowers. The males flowers emerge first. Scientists believe this is to attract pollinators. Squash is not self-pollinating, so you will want bees, wasps, and other pollinators to come visit. You can boost those odds by planting shallow, bright white, yellow, or blue flowers, such as borage, lavender, nasturtiums, pot marigold, salvia, sweet alyssum, or zinnias nearby.

Squash bees pollinating female summer squash flower (USDA) Public Domain

Male summer squash flower (USDA) Public Domain

How to grow yellow crookneck squash

Like other cucurbits, yellow crookneck squash prefers a sunny location with loose, well-drained soil and a soil pH of 5.8 to 6.8. If you are like me, the only one of those available in abundance is summer sunlight. Over time, you can acidify alkaline soil and improve soil structure with a mulch of arborist chips, but these things take time. If you’d rather not wait that long, raised beds or large containers are good options.

Once temperatures stay at or above 60°F, seeds can be planted 2” deep and 3 to 4 feet apart, if planting in rows. Another option is to create hills that are 6” to 12” tall and 20” across. In each hill, plant 4 or 5 seeds, spread 3” apart, and keep only the best seedling for each hill, snipping off the others at soil level. In arid regions, you can use inverted hills, or shallow areas. This makes watering easier, but it may increase problems with pests and fungal disease.

Fruit production should start 60 days after planting. If your plants are not producing, use a moisture meter to make sure they are getting enough water. Those big leaves may droop in the afternoon, but if they haven’t perked up by morning, they need more water. You can protect fruits from pests and disease by placing straw around the plant. This keeps fruit off the ground, preventing a case of measles, and it helps stabilize soil temperatures.

Squash plants are heavy feeders. You can help them stay healthy and productive by top dressing around plants with aged compost or fish emulsion. Avoid applying extra nitrogen. Nitrogen stimulates leaf growth, not fruit.

Harvesting yellow crookneck squash

Fruits are produced near the base of the plant and should be harvested when they are 4” to 7” long and 2” in diameter. Like other summer squashes, yellow crookneck squash will get tough is allowed to grow too large. Harvesting frequently also spurs the plant to produce more fruit. Just be sure to cut fruit from the plant with a clean knife. Do not twist fruit off as this can damage the plant, making it easier for pests and diseases to get inside.

While male squash flowers are edible, they are commonly battered and deep-fried, harvesting the flowers can significantly reduce your crop.

If you keep harvesting, these plants will keep producing. Squash can be cubed or spiralized, blanched, and frozen for later use, or used in chutney and relishes. Because squash is a low-acid food, it cannot be safely canned on its own. Even using a pressure canner to preserve summer squash is no longer considered adequate.

Yellow crookneck squash pests and diseases

If you see a small hole in the stem of your squash plant, slit the stem open further to see if the problem is squash vine borers. Borers can be removed by hand and then the stem laid on the ground and covered with soil. If you’re lucky, new roots will develop at the cut. Other pests include armyworms, cabbage loopers, crickets and grasshoppers, cucumber beetles, cutworms, darkling beetles, dried fruit beetles, earwigs, false chinch bugs, flea beetles, green peach aphids, leafhoppers, leaf miners, melon aphids, seed corn maggots, spider mites, squash bugs, stink bugs, thrips, whiteflies, and wireworms. If you live in the southeastern U.S., melonworm moths and pickleworms may also be a problem.

Irregular irrigation can reduce fruit production and lead to blossom end rot. Fungal diseases, such as anthracnose, charcoal rot, damping-off, downy mildews, Fusarium crown and foot rot, Fusarium wilt, Phytophthora fruit and crown rot, powdery mildew, sudden wilt, and Verticillium wilt. Bacterial diseases of summer squash include angular leafspot, bacterial leaf blotch, and bacterial wilt. Squash plants are also susceptible to viral diseases, such as cucumber mosaic, cucurbit aphid-borne yellows, cucurbit yellow stunting disorder, curly top, potyviruses, and squash mosaic virus.

Most of these diseases can be prevented by installing clean, disease-free seed, selecting resistant varieties, spacing plants for good airflow, and by avoiding overhead watering. If you keep leaves dry and do not handle plants while they are wet, the spread of pathogens is significantly reduced. Diseased plants should be removed and discarded. Despite all those threats, yellow crookneck squash plants are impressive and productive. You probably only need two of these plants to keep your family supplied.

If all that weren’t enough, molybdenum deficiencies can cause a condition known as yellows. Yellows eliminates squash fruit set and generally kills the plant. [What does your soil test say about molybdenum in your garden?]

As the growing season nears its end, leave one fruit to complete its life life cycle. You won’t want to eat it, but the seeds can be used for next year’s crop. And your chickens will be happy to take care of the scraps. Just be sure to keep different types of summer squashes away from each other. Cross-pollination doesn’t always result in desirable offspring.