This year one of our experiments was to try and grow butternut squash.  Growing this type of squash is an exercise in patience, because it takes all season and you might not get that much.

We managed to get 4 vines to grow and ended up with about a half-dozen squash of varying sizes.  This one is one of our best:


What lovely color you have, my dear.  All the better to eat you!

That’s actually still sitting on our kitchen table even though it was picked about two weeks ago when the vines started to die off.  My memory of winter squash is that it will keep a while, so I’m just leaving it on the kitchen table with the Jack-be-Little pumpkins (more on them in another post) as an ornamental gourd.  I plan on peeling, chopping and cooking it for Thanksgiving.  If it starts to go soft before then, I will do what I did with some of the smaller ones – peel, chop & blanch before freezing.

We actually ate a couple of the smaller squash that we picked, figuring it was probably a good idea to see if they tasted okay before we make them a component of our Thanksgiving meal and they’re terrible.

I know you’re probably thinking, what a cute little squash!  Not so cute?  What was done to it:

It was not only the squash that was a victim of something’s teeth – a watermelon and a couple of pumpkins also fell victim to an all-you-can-eat buffet.  It was fine in both cases – the part of the rind that was nibbled got cut away, and we composted the pumpkin because it was starting to break down where teeth met skin.

We’re thinking it was probably not this guy that did it:

At least he’s on the right side of the road

It actually didn’t take me that long to try to figure out how to work putting a photo of a buffalo on a blog about gardening in New England, in case you were wondering.  It’s a quick leap from “rabbit” to “buffalo” in my world.  Also, this will allow me to add the tag “buffalo” to the list of labels for this blog, which amuses me immensely.

I will tell you that buffalo is an incredibly tasty meat if you like a carnivorous side with your vegetables for dinner.  No, we did not eat the guy in the photo.