F.A. Farm

I am quite fond of winter squash. This year I have Delicatas, Flame Buttercup (my own variety), Butternut, Dutch Crookneck, Blue Hubbard and Carnival. The Carnival seeds were given to me by a neighbor and they yielded spectacularly. The Blue Hubbard I grew out at another neighbor's, so I could keep the strain alive. I had gotten a buff-colored variant and I wanted to see if they would breed true. They didn't and my conclusion is they have more diversity in this seed line than I thought. The Delicatas, Carnival and Dutch Crookneck all produced at a rate of $30,000 per acre at the retail price of $1.50, $1.25 and $1.00 per pound respectively. All three produced at the calorie rate of 3-4 million kilocalories per acre, making them comparable to wheat in calorie density.

The Buttercups and Butternuts are not all in yet, but they are producing at the rate of $15,000 per acre. (I have the total square footage in my spreadsheet and so the figures are not "hard" until the whole harvest is in.) Their calorie value is around 2.3 million kilocalories per acre, again with only a partial harvest yield, but the total square footage alloted to the vegetable. I anticipate both the Buttercups and Butternuts will rise to the level of the other squashes once I have the harvest done and the final numbers in the spreadsheet. Since I am the only farmer on the place, there is always too much to do and the weather being so mild, I am leaving squash out in the field longer.

Here in modern America, we don't eat enough squash. I notice that the Local Harvest newsletter has a good recipe for Butternut Squash Soup in the newsletter that just came out today. This is a standard recipe and quite easy to prepare. We use a similar recipe all the time, but Toni and I mostly eat our squash baked. It is easy to pop into the oven at 350 degrees for an hour and a little bit of butter on top is all you need. (Forget the brown sugar - if the squash is mature it is sweet enough.) Squash, beans and potatoes are wonderful staple foods for the winter. Add a few root vegetables, sprouts and overwintered salad greens (including mustard) and a little meat for flavoring, and you can eat cheaply all winter long.