Extra! Extra! 85 pounds of food from one plant.

Help!  Today has brought in a rainy September morning and a houseful of the ubiquitous butternut squash.   I just can't believe that one plant could produce 17 (!!!) giant squashes (85 pounds).   Some will go to the food shelf and some will go to friends (watch out). The truth is, I thought that I had planted delicata squash, which is my favorite, not butternut.  Whoops.  Soups, gratins, and stuffed squash will be on our table this fall and, thankfully, the squashes keep well into winter, but I am sure my people will be tired of eating butternut long before it runs out. Here is a recipe I love, and it will use up about 1/17th of my harvest....

Butternut, Cheddar and Sage Gratin

This needs only a green salad.  It's a hearty dish.

• one peeled and cubed (1/2" or so) butternut squash
• 1 TBS butter
• 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
• 1 clove of garlic minced or pressed
• 1/4 cup of finely sliced, fresh sage leaves
• a drizzle of olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/4 c heavy cream
• 6 oz grated cheddar cheese (I like sharp)

Preheat oven to 350.

Melt butter in a cast iron or other heavy skillet.  Over medium heat, add onion to melted butter and stir until it begins to soften (about 4 minutes). Add sage leaves and garlic.  Drizzle in some olive oil (about 1 or 2 TBS) and stir until fragrant and onions start to caramelize. (About 12 minutes)

Add squash to a butter or oiled 9 x 13" baking dish.  Toss in the onion and sage mixture, the cream, and salt and pepper to taste. Use your hands or utensils to get a good blend of all the ingredients.  Cover with foil and bake in preheated oven for about 40 minutes.  Take out the dish, remove the foil, turn up the oven to 450, cover squash with the cheddar cheese and return to oven until brown and bubbly, about another 20 to 30 minutes.  You can even turn on the broiler for a minute or two at the end to really make the top brown.

This freezes well.  It's great for potlucks and any other time you want to feed a crowd.

Planting the Perfect Pumpkin

We all want that giant, magical pumpkin come harvest time.  Here are a few tips to get you there.  Pumpkins are related to cucumbers, melons, summer squash, zucchini, and winter squashes and all of the vegetables in this family will benefit from this treatment. Warm soil. In Vermont wait until early June to put out the plants--a good rule of thumb is to wait until we have had a few nights above 50 F degrees. Transplants do better than seeds since you will have a head start on the season and don't risk having seeds rot in cold soil or be eaten by the local rodent.  It's best to keep two plants together when transplanting since the larger volume of foliage will help shade out weeds later in the season.

A raised bed or mound. This will help warm the soil and improve drainage.  It also gives the plants' shallow roots a place full or looser soil to spread without strain.

Lots of fertility. Compost is a  must for successful pumpkins, squashes, cucumbers and melons.  At home, we use rotted donkey manure (thanks to Pokey and Rosy) mixed with well composted yard debris (leaves, grass clippings) and food scraps.  More can be learned about compost at the Vermont Compost Company website.  A little granular fertilizer can be used as well if you do not have access to good compost and/or very poor soils.  A soil test is always a good idea, and can be done easily at your local extension office.

Adequate water. One inch a week.  That means that if it does not rain, you should gently pour about 3 gallons of water at the base of your plants.  A slow drip irrigation system or soaker hose is a great option as well.

Full sun. There is no compromise on this one.  The plants must have at least 8 to 10 hours of full sunlight.

Lots of room.  Plants (actually, groups of 2 plants) should be at least 3 feet apart. They need that much space for proper ventilation and so that the flowers and foliage are exposed to pollinators and sunlight.

Pollination. Plant a few bee friendly plants such as calendula, borage, mint and salvias around your garden to attract bees and other beneficial insects.  Cucurbit plants have male and female flowers on each plant and have to be pollinated by insects.  Welcoming bees to your garden will help yields since more female flowers will become pollinated--the only way for them to produce fruit.

Harvest at the right time. Winter squashes and pumpkins should be harvested when the skins are hard and cannot be pierced by your thumbnail.  Summer squashes and cucumbers and zucchini should be harvested at whatever stage you like to eat them, from baby to baseball bats.  Watermelons are harvested when the tendrils on either side of the attaching stem are dead and the yellow spot on the bottom of the fruit (where it rests on the ground) is a deep yellow, and when thunking the fruit with your knuckle produces a hollow sound.  Cantaloupes are ready when they slip off the vine with a gentle tug (called the "half slip stage").  Melons take a little trial and error to learn to harvest at the right time, but a good rule of thumb is "if in doubt, wait."

Julie's Introduction

If you ask me, September is the best month in the garden.

The warm season crops are still doing well (in theory) and the colder season crops are starting to come back, thankful for the cooler nights.

The harvest basket seems to just fill itself up the minute I step into the straw mulched paths, pausing for a moment to ask if I should eat the raspberries before or after I do a little grunt work.

But while all of this pastoral musing seems idyllic enough, there are some other thoughts in the nether layers that I need to reckon with.

First of all, why is my garden so big?

Why is it that every April, the month of good intentions, I decide that this is the year I will finally find time to keep everything weeded and tended?

As we slide from April to September, my good intentions are slowly eclipsed by my desire to spend summertime in places other than the garden. I love to bike, hike, swim, row, travel, read in the hammock, and yes, I love to cook, hence the garden. But gardening feels like work when it is 95 F and the weeds are scratching my neck.

I used to feel guilty about all of this, but now I have learned to cope with the ebb and flow of my gardening enthusiasm-- what I am working on now is gardening without guilt.

While it is true that I am very passionate about gardening, I realize that there is a seasonal drive to every aspect of this hobby. Every gardener must come to terms with his or her own type of engagement in the garden. There is no right or wrong way to garden. There is beauty and purpose in every type of garden and what matters most is that a garden meets the needs of the gardener, not the other way around. Gardens without guilt are places of liberation and revelation....a place to accept both our shortcomings and our successes.

The food coming out of my garden this year is bountiful as always, and I have managed to learn a few things which have made the garden easier to manage in spite of its size. Over the next few months as we go through another autumn and winter cycle, I will reflect on what gardening means to me, what I do with the food from my garden, and how I go about deciding what to grow at Red Wagon Plants.

As I share these thoughts with you, I encourage you to share your notions about The Garden. What works well for you? What are the disasters? How does your garden fit into your life? This garden journal is a collective effort between the people of Red Wagon Plants and the family of customers created by all of those young plants going out into the world of our gardens. We hope you will share the thoughts you glean this season and keep the conversation going until we see you again in the spring.

Don't Fear Frost! Extending Your Growing Season

Here in Vermont, we can count on just a few frost-free months. But with a little bit of planning, strategic planting, and getting the right tools, you can harvest through a bit of frost and snow. But by planning out crop planting so that crops are mature before the short days and cold weather hits, you can then protect them and harvest them well into winter.

Row covers such as reemay are usually used with hoops made of #9 gauge wire so that the fabric does not rest right on the plants. These covers breath and come in various weights. They allow light and water in, but raise the temperature of the soil and air inside the cover.

Cold frames are simple boxes that are filled with good quality soil and are covered with windows (called "lights") or clear plexiglass or sometimes plastic. They are used for season extension, plant protection, as mini-greenhouses, and as a place to overwinter tender perennials. The covers are closed at night and opened on sunny days. Lettuce, spinach, hardy greens, and herbs can be grown most of the winter in a hot bed with a south facing light. "Hot beds" are deep cold frames that hold a thick layer of manure below the soil. As the manure decomposes, it lets out a tremendous amount of heat which keeps the frame very warm at night even in the winter. Cold frames can be made out of wood, straw, stone, concrete with old storm windows on hinges. The windows must be small enough that they can be opened and closed easily by raising them up and propping them with a stick.

Straw mulch is a great way to extend the season for vegetables such as kale, spinach, carrots, beets and other root crops. Once the crops are matured, a very thick layer of straw around the base of the plants will keep the ground from freezing so that the roots may still be harvested. The straw also keeps the top of the crops from freezing in extreme temperatures. Spinach can be overwintered under straw so that an early spring crop can be eaten. Kale lasts well into winter and is also helped by a deep straw layer so that the cold wind does not completely dessicate the leaves.

Every home garden has microclimates. It is a good idea to take advantage of these when planning the fall garden. A south-facing foundation wall is a great place to prep a small area for greens and herbs that will be well sheltered from cold, northern winds. It's a good place to situate a cold frame as well and to plant it with radishes, greens, and other crops that will benefit from the micro climate.

Containers are another great way to extend the season. Herbs, greens and lettuces can be planted in pots, apple crates, milk crates, or window boxes and moved inside when the weather gets too cold. While they might not last all winter long, they will certainly give you some fresh eating for a few months longer...all you need is a sunny spot or some simple grow lights. Thyme, parsley, rosemary, and sage all do well in containers in the home and will last all winter. Kale and lettuce will last up to 5 or 6 weeks longer than they would outdoors.

Photograph by One Green Generation . Creative Commons license.

Simple Food Preservation for the Home Gardener

The most important element of putting up food is safety. While problems like botulism are rare, they can be serious. Please make sure to follow recipes exactly, as the amount of acid, cooking time, and temperature can determine whether foods will be safe to eat.

The type of food preservation you'll do depends on your storage space, what you like to have on hand to eat in the winter, and how much work you want to do. Freezing food is the easiest method, but it depends on whether you've got extra space in your freezer.

For excellent over-all advice and recipes for canning, freezing, and otherwise preserving food, visit any college's Extension Service website, or:

Canning Across America

preservefood.com

simplycanning.com

A brief rundown of what I do most years:

Fruit Spreads and Jams: I use a low sugar pectin such as Pomona's, which you can buy locally at City Market. It allows you to make a really simple fruit spread with honey, fruit juice concentrate or just a fraction of the sugar that would be in a regular jam.

Canning is a great technique for preserving high acid foods like tomatoes, fruit, and pickles. For a thorough explanation of canning, go to vegetablegardener.com. This will give you a very clear introduction to water bath canning (non-pressure canning of acidic foods). The ones that I do each year are tomatoes, peaches, and applesauce.

Simple Tomato Sauce: wash and cut up tomatoes into halves or quarters. Then pulse in food processor until they are chopped up well and the skins are pulverized. I usually do a few batches at a time until I have about a gallon of soupy tomato sauce which I then cook down for several hours over low heat until the desired thickness is reached. Salt to taste. This can then be canned or frozen. I doctor it up with herbs, garlic, etc when I use it in the winter time that gives me more flexibility.

Tomatoes can also be frozen whole and raw by placing them in a zip-lock bag as they ripen. When you later need to use them, you just have to run them under warm water to slip the skins off.

Roasted Ratatouille: I chop up onions, zucchini, eggplant, and tomatoes and toss them with herbs, olive oil, and sea salt. I then spread it on cookie sheets in a single layer and roast in a 400 degree oven until soft and starting to caramelize (turning once or twice helps). It takes about 50 minutes per batch. I then freeze this in containers or freezer bags. It is fantastic on pizza, pasta, in lasagnas or other casseroles, or on its own.

Sweet Peppers: just chop up raw peppers and place in a freezer baggie. Very simple and a great addition to just about anything you are sauteeing.

Herbs: any herb can be turned into a puree with a little olive oil and salt in the food processor. This is a good candidate for freezing in ice cube trays and then placing the frozen blocks into labeled baggies. When making dishes in the winter, simply toss an herb cube into the pot for extra flavor ; soups, sauces, stir fries, salad dressings are all good options for this method. Pesto can be frozen this way too, allowing you to thaw out just what you need.

Other vegetables that freeze well are green beans and spinach: just steam, dry well, and place in bags. You can also chop spinach or other greens after blanching briefly, and press into ice cube trays to freeze into cubes to have on hand for soups, pasta and the like in the winter.

Pickling beets, carrots and cucumbers is another simple and satisfying way to store these veggies, either in the refrigerator (for consumption within 3 months), or by canning them for a longer shelf-life. See recipes at:

Recipezaar AllRecipes Garden Web/Harvest Forum