Autumn Frost Squash: What I Will Grow Next Year

I have written about this before, but butternut squash is the go-to squash for "pumpkin" pie (and bread).  The canned "pumpkin" you purchase in the grocery is butternut.  I grow it every year, until this season, when the few seeds I had failed (maybe they got too old?).  But, luckily I had been seduced by the glossy photos on a seed house website and ordered Autumn Frost squash.  This squash is a pretty, buff colored squash, more orange than butternut, and just as tasty (some have green markings).  Though it is smaller than butternut, it is prolific and I will grow it next year, alongside the good old Waltham butternut!  By the way, this hard-stemmed squash has never been affected by squash vine borers in my garden (same with butternut and Long Island Cheese)! This is true for all Curcubita moschata squash.

Roast the squash (any winter squash) after you poke it with a few holes (you don't want it to explode!) in a glass dish in a 350 degree oven for 50 minutes or so.  Let it cool, cut it in half, remove the seeds and scrape out the flesh, easy peasey!

Long Island Cheese

 

This winter squash is, hands down, the best I have ever grown.  Called Long Island Cheese, it got its name from its resemblance to a wheel of cheese.  It passed my first and most important criteria, that it is easy to grow. In addition, the flesh of this pumpkin is dense, sweet, and absolutely delicious. It is perfect for pies, pumpkin bread, and other desserts, but I've also used it to make a pumpkin curry with wonderful results.  Squash vine borers (which seem to be at epidemic proportions in my garden) made absolutely no headway with the squash, nor did cucumber beetles. It kept producing fruit all the way through the season. From one vine, I got about seven small to very large squash, more large end than small.  This is definitely a squash I will grow again!  I ordered it from Pinetree Garden Seeds (www.superseeds.com) but many heirloom seed houses carry it.

Happy garden planning! Order your seeds yet? I did!

2015 Winter Squash

My goodness, it has been a long time since I posted. I need to rectify that!

As some of you know, I have a "thing" for winter squash. (Flash of insight: I have a "thing" for many plants!)  Winter squash is tasty, is the "go to" squash for "pumpkin" pies, is delicious in a curried squash soup and I just love them.

This year, I again grew the old standby, Waltham butternut. This tried and true heirloom is tasty, prolific and has hard stems that make it almost impossible for the squash vine borer to create havoc.  I got a dozen fruits, at least, off of one plant, and it kept pumping them out until fairly recently (too late for some of them to mature, though).  I grew three new squash this year: Gold Nugget (the small, orange one on the left); Galeux d'Eysines (called a "peanut squash) in the center and: Futsu Black (the smaller, warty ones).  None were as prolific as the Waltham, though the Gold Nugget came close.  All these squash have dry flesh, which I prefer, as I believe it tastes better and is easier to cook.  And the Galeux and Futsu are cool looking, too.   The Galeux only produced two large squash, as did the Futsu, but they were fun to grow.

There are two pests that give me the most trouble with the curcubits, the squash vine borer and the cucumber beetle (the borer kills the plant from inside the stem, the cucumber beetle spreads a wilting virus).  This year, I tried a new "barrier" method to deal with them (used this for my cucumbers too, and got a great harvest):  I kept the plants coated with Surround (trademark), a finely ground, Kaolin clay.  You mix it up in a sprayer and spray the plants.  Cucumber beetles, and the moth that lays the vine borer eggs, must not like the gritty texture, and they avoid the plants.  The downside is that Surround will wash off in a heavy rain and must be reapplied.

Oh, I got all these seeds through Pinetree Garden Seeds,Pinetree Garden Seeds

Happy gardening!

Warty Baby

My Galeux d'Eysines winter squash is getting warty! OhBoyOhBoyOhBoy!

And Pintree Garden Seeds (where I purchased the seed from) says it might get like this:

https://www.superseeds.com/vegetables/column-3/squash/galeux-d-eysines-winter-squash-100-days.html

Should be good eating, too!  It is supposed to grow 10-15 pounds.

Recipe: Spicy Baked Squash

Look at my beautiful Waltham butternut squash!  I had great luck this past season, getting 5-7 squash per vine. I harvested and cured them in the sun for a couple of weeks and they have stored beautifully! I decided to grow this type of squash as it has a hard stem/vine that resists the squash vine borer that usually destroys my vines before they can produce much fruit. 

I decided to roast the squash with an olive oil and spice mix, with a small amount of brown sugar.  I used chili powder, paprika and some garlic salt too, mixed with a few tablespoons of olive oil. I roasted it in a 350 oven for about an hour  The result: YUM!

Here is the beautiful squash before removing the seed.

 I scored the squash, cutting out a little flesh along the score lines,before adding the oil and spice mix.

 Properly "dressed" squash!

 Just about to come out of the oven, beautifully glazed.

Happy eating what you grow!  Oh, and HAPPY GROUNDHOG'S DAY!

Waltham butternut and the dreaded "vacation zucchini"

I have been casting about for a winter squash that is productive, and fights back when squash vine borers attack. I searched for a winter squash that was resistant to squash vine borers and settled for the old-time favorite, Waltham butternut.  Apparently, any squash with harder stems is more resistant to these pests, the plague of squash growers everywhere.  I planted my butternuts late (apparently a no-no: early planting helps foil these beasties) and they began producing the beautiful fruits you see here.  The plants did finally get borers, but I used a garden syringe to inject BT (a bacteria that only kills caterpillars who munch on it) and the plants are still out-growing the borer damage.  I also will mound soil over various parts of the stem to encourage it to root, and I think I may get some more squash from these babies (this is from 2 plants).
Also pictured, the gardener's embarassment: vacation zucchini.  If you go away during the summer, have a neighbor pick your zucchini!  Large ones like these can be shredded and frozen for winter soups and stews.  If they have sizeable seeds, core them to remove the seeds before you shred them.  If they get woody, it is time for the compost heap!
Happy gardening!

What pumpkin for your pie?

I have actually never made a pumpkin pie using canned pumpkin, and I make them more often than just at Thanksgiving (I love pumpkin pie). I have used pie pumpkins before, they are round, orange and smaller than Jack 'o Lantern type pies. I have grown these types of pumpkins, but in recent seasons I have despaired of growing pumpkins and winter squashes due to the dreaded squash vine borer. But the two types of squashes traditionally used in "pumpkin pie" are pretty resistant to the borer, as they have much firmer stems. Why? The vine borer is a moth that lays tiny eggs singly (many of them, but not in clusters) on your plants. The eggs hatch and the larvae (caterpillar) bores into the stem and grows fat feeding on your plant, eventually killing it. The two types of borer-resistant squashes are pictured above: the cooked one is a butternut (hard stem) type called the Dickinson Field Pumpkin (Curcubita moschata), and this is what is in those cans of packed pumpkin at the grocery. The other is also resistant to borers, and it is called the Green-Striped Cushaw (C. mixta), one of the oldest varieties of winter squash (perhaps grown by native Americans thousands of years ago). Both have dry flesh, the Dickinson deep orange, the Cushaw yellow, and are sweet and great for pie applications! I intend to find the seed and grow both next year. (Full disclosure: I bought both at a farm stand).

Oh, a third type that I buy, not grow, is a cheese wheel type pumpkin. These are very large (I estimate this cooked one pictured here at about 40 lbs) and, like all squash, are heavy feeders. They have dry, deep orange flesh (and lots of it), prefect for pie, bread, muffins and soup.

The easy way to get at that flesh is to bake the pumpkin whole or sliced in half at about 350 until tender when pierced with a fork (the 40 pounder took 3 hours, the others 45 minutes). Let it cool, scoop out the seeds and fibers, and scrape away the sweet flesh from the skin.

Happy eating! Happy Thanksgiving! Happy gardening!

More veggie cookin'

If you do all but the most minimal vegetable gardening, you will have to figure out what to do with all that you produce. One easy vegetable (actually a fruit, like many food we call vegetables) to process is winter squash (pumpkins, hubbards, crook neck, turban, delicata, etc). I used to follow the instructions from an old cookbook to process winter squash and make it into puree- cut the squash in half, remove the seeds, cut off the skin and simmer in water or steam, then puree it. Then I found out about roasting-cut the squash in half, scoop out the seeds, rub with olive oil, place cut side down on a cookie sheet and roast at 375-400 until soft. These methods are a bit difficult with a large and heavy shelled winter squash, however. Recently I heard about the easiest method of all, and the one that produces the best cooked squash. Wash the squash, take off the stem, poke a few holes in it near the top and roast it whole at 400 degrees in a roasting pan until soft. Remove it from the oven, let it cool, cut in half and easily scoop out the flesh and seeds. You can mash it by hand or puree it in a food mill, food processor or blender. This does take a longer than roasting a cut up squash, but is easier and results in a dense flesh that has cooked in its own juices, producing the most flavorful squash I have ever had. I was able roast whole a pretty large cheese wheel pumpkin (about 3 times the size of the largest one in the photo, maybe 20 lbs- in the photo are two small "fairy tale"-type pumpkins I grew, that are also now cooked and frozen...and some pumpkin pecan pancakes.). Now I have a lot of puree for pie, bread, soup, and eating as a side veggie. And I might even make a bit of pumpkin butter.
Happy gardening! And eating!