More garden cleaning, this time in Smith. I’m performing this task a little at a time to allow for proper good-byes for remembering our time together. Too many partings all at once from these familiar friends is a burden. I need to space this task out. Today, I pulled the Butternut squash vines. I can’t tell you what satisfaction these vines gave me this season. Watching and tending this squash was one of 2011’s most fun and invigorating garden endeavors. I planted four hills of Butternut squash in Smith at the feet of a corn patch, just like the Indians showed the Pilgrims.
Ready for harvest
I’ll be frank. I’ve never liked members of the Sweet Orange Mealy-Fleshed Vegetable Family, sweet potatoes, winter squash, pumpkins. I don’t even care for pumpkin pie. So why grow Butternut Squash and why am I thrilled with such a large harvest? Because I want to school myself in the ways of self-sufficiency, at least with food. I wanted, as much as possible in a 15 x 15 plot (Smith), to grow things for now and also for later, so I planted winter squash, a keeper. I sowed four seeds in each hill, way too much for this small space, but I’ll thin them down later I told myself. Yeah. Right! I did no such thing. I let ’em grow, let ’em all sprawl. Make yourselves at home, boys! The last two years I experimented with bush winter squash, bred for small gardens, but it didn’t grow well and I got virtually no squash. I made good and sure that wouldn’t happen again. Continue reading
