Butternuts Reign Supreme

Butternut squash is the absolute king of winter squash. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love butternut squash. If you’re new to vegetable gardening, butternut squash is a heck of a lot easier to grow than a lot of other vegetables, so put it on the list to plant next year.

“What do you mean - next year?” I hear you say.  “This one isn’t over yet!”  Ah, dear fellow gardeners, that’s the fantastic things about this hobby/passion of ours. We look forward to the next growing season before we’ve finished harvesting this one, because we’ve been keeping notes about what worked and what didn’t  –  and we can’t wait to try it all again next year.  You have been keeping notes, right?  Mental notes at least??

So this year my butternut squash has been amazing.  I grew one plant from seed and trained it up a trellis. Another plant grew all by itself, probably from a seed in the compost.  By the time I noticed it, it was so big I didn’t have the heart to pull it out.  Anyway, I was curious to see what sort of squash had the courage to turn up unannounced in my orderly bed – turned out to be the big "B.” 

Knowing when to harvest is a dilemma – some experts say wait until the first frost.  But I had four huge squash on the trellis and three more on the usurper. The skins were tan and hard, so I cut them off the vine in late July and left them in the sun for a couple of days.  Within a few days, surprise, surprise, a bunch of new babies were starting to grow.  Last week, I harvested five more  --  and just this morning I spotted yet another new baby!

It’s getting a bit late for it to mature, but if the sun keeps shining on us, who knows, maybe we’ll add an "afterthought" to our family of squashes sitting happily in the basement waiting for the winter.

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