Too Much Squash?

I started harvesting some cushaw squash last week, and boy, are they big.

This type of squash is a member of a somewhat lesser- known species, Cucurbita argyrosperma. Supposedly, it will not cross-polinate with squash from the other more well-known edible species like C. pepo (summer squash and zucchini), C. maxima (pumpkins), and C. moschata (butternut squash).

This is great if you want to save the seeds for planting next year. You can grow cushaw alongside zucchini or butternut, keep the seeds from all three, and they’ll each come back true-to-type. On the other hand, if you were to plant yellow squash and zucchini (both C. pepo) next to each other, the plants would likely crosspolinate. Those seeds would grow into plants with differing characteristics.

Another characteristic I like about cushaw is that it is resistant to the squash vine borer. Every year I struggle with this pest. The adult moth, which looks sort of like a wasp, lays eggs that hatch into larvae. The larvae bore into the hollow stems of squash plants and eat them from the inside. There isn’t really anything you can spray to prevent these pests, organic or otherwise. So for the other species of squash, I usually try to overcome it with numbers. I plant more squash than I need, knowing that the vine borer will take out some of them. I think nearly every one of the cushaw seeds that germinated in my garden grew into a huge vine. And I mean huge. They spread 20 to 30 feet or more in all directions. That’s probably why this variety is not as well-known. Most backyard gardeners don’t have the space to grow it.

But if you do have the space, it will reward you with a bountiful harvest. I picked seven of them last week. The digital scale I have maxes out at 20 lbs., and most of these were heavier than that. This first harvest must be well over 100 lbs. And I still have about three or four times that much growing in the field.

I have no idea what I’m going to do with all this squash. Cushaw can be prepared in the same way you would use pumpkins or butternut squash – pies, soups, pureed and stuffed into dumplings. I have so much I’ll probably end up feeding some of it to my cattle. Do you have any recipes for butternut squash or pumpkin? Please send them to andy@fayettecountyrecord.com.