When storing winter squash, always keep the stems on to reduce spoilage

It’s time to harvest winter squash. Those are the types of squash that develop a hard rind or shell as they ripen. The more well-known ones include butternut, acorn, buttercup, Hubbard, and others.

Summer squash on the other hand, are usually harvested in the summer well before they reach maturity. Zucchini, patty pan and crookneck are among the most popular summer squash.

We had our first frost of the season this week. Early in the morning, it got down to 30 degrees. While it froze all of our squash vines and leaves, the fruit was OK. Squash vines and leaves are very susceptible to frost but the fruit itself can tolerate a hard frost as long as the temperatures don’t dip down into the upper 20s for more than an hour or two.

Our winter squash yielded a nice crop this year, providing us with a good number of squash that we’ll be storing for use later. The vines grew so long that a couple of them grew up into the grapevine trellis. When picking our grapes, we found a few squash hanging 4 feet in the air.

If winter squash is kept under the proper conditions, they will hold up in storage well into winter and beyond. The single most important thing you can do is to leave the stem on the fruit. This is true of all varieties of winter squash including pumpkins.

Snapping off or twisting the squash from the vine is the most common way of harvesting but that often causes stems to be broken off. That leaves an open wound where bacteria and fungus can enter the fruit, causing rot to set in. Instead, we always use a pair of pruning shears to cut our squash from the vine. Shears make a nice clean cut that will heal over quickly sealing the stem so that microorganisms can’t get in to cause damage.

Vegetable farmers always leave stems on even though it takes up lots more space on the truck during shipping. Sometimes, however, you can find farmers selling stemless winter squash at a deep discount. You should cook, freeze or process those bargain farmers market squash fairly soon.

If you plan to store squash, always choose your best ones, those with the least amount of scuffs, cuts, bruises or other damage. Injury to the rind leaves a pathway for microorganisms that will cause decay during storage. Blemished squash can be eaten first before they have a chance to spoil.

Often you’ll see references to curing the fruit at a warm temperature and high humidity. While this may be the ideal thing to do, I’ve never cured my squash in that manner and have always had a pretty good success rate during storage. I just let them sit at room temperature for several days before moving them into my storage area.

Squash keep best at temperatures in the low to mid-50s but will do perfectly well in the low to mid-40s.

Acorn squash can be stored for a month or two, butternut will easily go three or four months or even more. I’ve had them last eight months.

Hubbard squash, with its extremely hard shell, lasts the longest in storage, typically well over six months.

It’s very satisfying to have the results of your garden still there for your use long into the cold winter months.