Don’t see a garden harvest thread picking most of my squash now. Rain this weekend and down to 50 next week. Most not quite ready need probably 2 more weeks and not getting it do to weather. Going to hold for a month and hopefully they’ll be fine.
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Our vines are going down out in the jungle.
We grew Blue Hubbard and some got pretty big. We cooked one the other day and it was tasty! We ate the flesh after it was steamed with butter and salt. I aught to make some pies. We have lots of eggs, milk and butter for crusts. If only id didn’t give my menfolk heartburn!
I’ll post photos when we harvest.
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Did yours fully mature on vine? Mine are still green on the stems. Maybe 50-60% green. I left my biggest out there. Will pick Monday or Tuesday hopefully they’ll ripen a little more.
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My vines are still putting out some fruit, which I mostly pinch off, but there are some good sized squash still coming along, including many that have started to color. If frost comes and squash are just starting to color, will they finish maturing and reach a good taste if I pick them and bring them inside? I expect they won’t keep as well, but I’m hoping if they are at least coloring they’ll still be worth eating. Any real juveniles I’ll either eat like summer squash or just compost. These are all butternut types.
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Butternuts that have sized up but not yet colored make exceptional summer squash. You get some of the sweetness and texture of the mature, but it cooks up like summer squash. Ones that have colored up a bit are probably best used like this, but you have to peel them.
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This year I only grew bush butternut. Tired of fighting the squash vine borer when I grew other varieties. First time with bush butternut. VERY happy with it. The vines grew about 3’ in length. 6 vines produced 20 fruits. They ripened very early over any butternut type I ever grew before. The fruit size was decent and not as small as I thought they would be (just right size for 2 people for dinner). Flavor is excellent.
Guy at nursery I work at grew georgia candy roasters this year. I never had one before so bought a medium sized one from him. I will estimate it was about 25 pounds. The flesh baked well and worked good in cream of squash soup. It is not quite as sweet as my bush butternut but happy with it.
Wish I could still grow sweet potato squash, buttercup, pink banana ect but the vine borers now dictate what I can successfully grow. Tried spraying the vines too but it didn’t seem to help on those varieties.
For those who do spray for vine borer, what insecticides have you found that worked? I sprayed 4 times last year and the borer won.
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This is third year I grew n. Georgia candy roaster. Like them great grower still think I’ll stick with sweet meat. Going to cut my squash planting by half next year. Tired of weeding when I don’t use so much and giving away.
I don’t have squash vine borer here I’m lucky.
Some of my Long island cheese pumpkins. I hope to end up with 10 of these. Still have some ripening outside.
We use them for pumpkin puree, I’m making some as I post this.
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I have some seeds of those but have never grown them. I think they are suppose to make really good pumpkin pies.
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My family agreed they make a great pie. Easy to grow and resistant to squash vine borer. It’s a lot of work to cook them and puree and all, been at it for hours now, but the puree is so versitile. Seeds are good too and chickens love the scraps. Worth it.
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Growing up in NJ, they were the regional go-to for pies. Probably still are. They weren’t quite as good when I grew them in Kansas, but that could have been strain or climate or just poor work on my part.
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It appears that I beat the SVBs this year by thoroughly spraying the vines with spinosad once a week—and twice a week when males were detected in my monitoring traps (which happened only twice). It could be, of course, that pressure from borers was lower this year—as suggested by my mostly empty monitoring traps. I grew a blue C. maxima (Stella Blue), which was decimated by them last year. Personally prefer C. moschata, because it’s a lot less trouble, but some family members like Stella Blue better than butternut, so I obliged.
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I grew a squash called
Lower Salmon River.
I saved the seed and re planted.
I suspect that the squash hybridized with a neighbor.
We’ll see how it tastes and cooks up.
Size to 12 pounds 10 ounces.
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This is what it’s supposed to look like.
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@Boizeau never heard of that one are you local to that region in lower salmon? How did it taste for you, must be a maxima?
@JeremiahT Maxima does in my opinion have more moisture than moschata, but I have found if there is enough moisture inside when cooking moshata it turns fabulously. So I like both myself, though I tend o lean towards maxima.
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This is a pretty broad-strokes article, but lots of helpful info on caring for and using your precious pumpkins:
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Anyone else here like grilled winter squash? Sliced about 1/2" thick; salt, pepper, and olive oil (or just salt and oil), grilled over medium-high to high heat. Superb. Over charcoal is even better.
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Never tried cooking them like that will give it a whirl. Plain baking them is my go to.
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Beautiful! Yum!
I’ve used sweet meat squash before never butternut might try that as well.
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