Chad and I usually prefer open-pollinated varieties as opposed to hybrids, so that we have the option of saving seeds if we want to.

However, early this year when we were choosing our seeds, I was tempted by ‘Cube of Butter,’ a yellow zucchini hybrid that promised to be very productive, have a great texture, and good disease resistance.

We planted ten or so different varieties of summer squash this year, and ‘Cube of Butter’ was our first to produce.

Interestingly, we planted two patches of this variety – one was ultra productive, giving us a ridiculous amount of squash, and the other was pretty slow.

But the slow one came with an interesting feature. Apparently this hybrid isn’t too stable yet – the less productive plant gave us zucchinis that were – instead of solid yellow – pale green belted with yellow. We liked the way they look, so no complaints there.

But this just goes to show that you can’t judge a variety on a single planting. If we’d only planted the less-productive patch, we would have been unimpressed with the variety.

The productive patch showed us what the variety is supposed to do: be a non-stop yellow zucchini party.

Another thing I liked about this variety is that it can get fairly big without getting seedy. (Some hybrids don’t actually develop seeds – this one did, though, and we saved some of them.)

It’s a great yellow zucchini for cooking with or eating raw. I used it to make zoodles, casseroles, sautes – and we even dried some in our dehydrator.

2020 was an amazing year for squash in the Hearthwilde garden – we had a ridiculous supply of summer squash – and our winter squash harvest was also outstanding.

We’re not giving up our favorite heirlooms but we’ll definitely add this hybrid to our pantheon of all time garden heroes.

Want to see some other varieties we grew from seed? More coming soon…

Lauren’s Grape Poppy

California Poppies

Plains Coreopsis

Hey friend! Drop me a note in the comments section. Life can get a little lonely out here on the farm and its fun to hear who’s reading this. What are your own feelings about hybrids? What’s your favorite way to eat zucchini?