November Squash Share

• Winter Luxury pumpkin
• Blue hubbard squash
• Acorn Squash “Tuffy”
• Sunflower seeds
• Garlic
• Parsley, Sage, Thyme

The winter luxury pumpkin is an heirloom eating pumpkin. I cut the pumpkin into 12 slices and steam for 30 minutes. Scoop it out and make soup, puree to make pie, or freeze for future use. They are velvety smooth, with a true pumpkin flavor. The seeds can be roasted.

The blue hubbard squash has a really hard and thick shell. People have been known to bring out hacksaws when the butcher knife gets stuck. They are great storage squashes and can last well into the spring, if not for the hard freeze at night and our lack of controlled temperature storage operation.  So alas, the cold has frozen them lightly, and a few projected days of 50 degree weather will allow them to thaw. These are best processed, and eaten or frozen immediately.

The “Tuffy” acorn squash does indeed have a tough shell. Be careful when cutting open!! They start out dark green and turn orange over time.

Sunflower seeds are Dan’s experiment, quite successful at that. Each flower head was bigger than my head and gave about 1/2 lb seeds (each bag is about 1 lb, even though the label is for 1/2 lb). We have 3 65-gallon containers of sunflower seed, and mowed down the last 50 flower heads. Early on, we cut some flowers to dry hanging upside down in the barn. The mice loved them. So we left the rest in the field through Oct to dry naturally on the stalk. It was much less work that way. There’s dust and petals mixed in. You can rinse and dry in the oven, or soak overnight in salt water for salted seeds. Finally, they can be sprouted and eaten, or grown for an 8-foot stalk of a flower.