Squash Season Begins

I've begun harvesting my winter squash.  They are called "winter squash" because they store so well, you can basically do nothing to them and have them fresh all winter. So far, I have this line-up... I feel like a warden.  The kids LOVE growing winter squash because they grow easily and abundantly, are easy to harvest, (don't have to be eaten that night for dinner), and come in myriad shapes and colors.  My son lined these up for me along the house and gave each one a name as he did so.  My favorite was one of the smaller pumpkins, now known as, "Dr. Shiny Head." 

When harvesting your winter squash, use a pruner to clip them from the vine.  A longer stem is preferable for storage (and for carrying).  Be careful not to bruise them or damage their skin, because that only encourages rot.  What a discouragement to pick up a pumpkin in the middle of winter and have the bottom stay on the ground while the top gets lifted up.  Or, worse yet, get a handful of rotten pumpkin bottom.  Yuck!

They need to have great air circulation and warmer temperatures to cure for a couple weeks.  Keep them out of direct sunlight but also away from damp.  I'm hesitant to put ours in our outbuilding because the roof leaks and it gets so moist in there.  But, I also need to get them up off the concrete slab and onto something porous like cardboard, or even better, straw.  Hmmm, what to do, what to do.

The exception to winter squash curing is acorn squash.  Apparently, they don't really cure and need to be eaten within a few weeks.  That encourages me to leave mine on the vine a bit longer as I'm not quite ready to sit down to an acorn squash.  Doesn't quite seem close enough to Fall yet.

  Most of what you see in the photo are pumpkins.  I have my gourd-like pumpkins on the right - knobby and small; my zucchini-like pumpkins on the left - soft flesh and tall; and my first jack-o-lantern in the middle.  I have some great jack-o-lanterns coming this year.  I'm excited!  The little guy over on the right is another pumpkin, more of a sugar-pumpkin type, he would have gotten orange, but I loved his colors so much, I had to pick him.  Unfortunately, my daughter loves him too and might have dropped him a couple times.  He might not make it to Halloween.  BUT, that's one of the reasons I have a garden: to help people connect to their food - how it grows, what it looks like, what it feels like, what it tastes like fresh, etc.  So, if my daughter wants to form a strong attachment to a pumpkin, so be it! :)