[Homestead] summer squash
sgian at netscape.com
sgian at netscape.com
Sun Aug 22 12:07:39 EDT 2010
> Around here there is so much summer squash this year nobody can even give it
> away.
Summer squash is the answer to world hunger.
There's another strategy altogether in dealing with summer squash. Only plant one plant of each type. We grow four types, zucchini, yellow crook neck, patty pan, and some Italian squash that looks like club. The first three are bush types and the last will cover an acre with one plant if you let it.
When the squashes start to bloom, plant another plant of each type. As the squashes from the first planting set, harvest them very small. When the second planting begins to bloom, dig in the first planting and plant a third. Keep repeating this process the whole season. The plants stay young, compact, disease and insect free, and you only have a couple of weeks of squash to deal with at a time.
In a climate like this the first breath of frost will kill summer squash vines. But if you have a seedbed or emerging plants that you have covered against the first frost, many times it is three to five weeks or longer to the next frost and so there's an end of summer harvest as well.
Al alternative to digging in the successive beds is to let the unused and unwanted squash mature until they are like winter squash. They make excellent animal feed in the winter. We feed them to cows, goats, chickens, and rabbits.
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