Farmers Market Winter Squash Varietal Registration Ends Butternut-vs.-Acorn Labeling Dispute

SQUASHVILLE — The Farmers Market Winter Squash Varietal Registration closed Friday, ending the bitter three-week butternut-vs.-acorn labeling dispute that divided vendors, confused shoppers, and produced what market manager Tina Alvarez called “the most heated produce argument since the Great Heirloom Tomato Schism of 2022.”

The dispute began when vendor Green Acres Farm labeled a bin of squat, ribbed squash as “butternut,” prompting neighboring vendor Hollow Brook to file a formal varietal challenge, Form VS-7, alleging the squash were “obviously acorn, or possibly a butternut-acorn situation nobody asked for.” Tensions escalated when a shopper bit into a raw sample “for science” and declared it “neither, spiritually.”

Under the new registration, every winter squash sold at the market must be registered by varietal, with a photo on file and a placard reading the approved name. “No more ‘mystery squash.’ No more ‘squash, assorted.’ You tell the people what the squash is,” Alvarez said. The registry lists 23 approved varietals, including butternut, acorn, delicata, spaghetti, and “kabocha (pronunciation guide available on request).”

Green Acres’ squash were ultimately classified as “acorn-butternut cross, unintentional,” and must be labeled “HEIRLOOM CROSS — ASK THE FARMER,” a designation Alvarez invented on the spot and the board ratified 3–2. “The farmer, when asked, gives a 10-minute answer involving his grandfather’s seed-saving practices,” she said. “Shoppers love it. It’s basically entertainment now.”

The registry opens for spring planting in March, when, Alvarez sighed, “the tomato people start up again.”

The Form VS-7 varietal challenge process — the instrument Hollow Brook wielded against Green Acres — requires the challenger to submit a photo, a written description (“obviously acorn” was deemed “insufficiently botanical” and returned for revision), and a $5 filing fee “refundable if you’re right, which encourages accuracy.” Hollow Brook’s revised filing ran four pages and included a rib-count diagram; the review panel needed two sessions and one taste test — “roasted, with olive oil, for science” — before ruling “unintentional cross.”

The “ASK THE FARMER” placards have become the market’s surprise hit: shoppers queue at Green Acres specifically to hear the 10-minute answer about the grandfather’s seed-saving practices, which regulars now rate like a performance — “today’s telling was a 9; he added the part about the flood of ’87.” Alvarez is already planning next year’s registry expansion to include gourds “before the gourd people get ideas,” and has pre-printed Form VS-8 for “tomato season, which — I’m telling you now — will be worse.”