At the tippy-top very end of August, I picked six butternut squash. They probably weren't ready to pick, not quite, but I let them cure in the sun for ten days as my research told me to do, and they're still here, keeping nicely. One sits on my kitchen counter, begging me to use it since the stem broke off.
The color seemed nice, with very little green. However, notice there's still a light green stripe from stem to about the middle of the squash? That means it's not ready.
See the stem above? Not quite brown or dry enough. But I went ahead and had Thomas use the garden pruners to cut these seemingly ripe squashes off their vines.
They are beautiful, huh? Since it's October now, and I picked these at the tail end of August, I can say that I'm honestly glad I picked them back then. I've picked two more now, which are slightly beat up due to an animal gnawing at them. The gnaw marks aren't that deep, shallow enough to preserve the squash intact; I'll be using those squash shortly, since I don't think they'll keep as long as the others.
I'll update soon about the rest of the squash in my garden--there are several more! What a beautiful bounty, my first time with squash. *happy girl*
Back to life,
Christine
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You had a very productive garden this year. :)
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