Most of my Butternut Squash look fine but a couple have this brown stuff on them. What should I do about it?
The picture of the healthy squash sows that they are looking "done". Should I pick them now and store or wait until October?
I can eat the squash now even though they aren't "done"?
I would pick and destroy those with the signs of rot. It was probably too wet at the wrong time.
You can eat any squash at any age. In the case of winter squash like butternuts, the older cured ones are sweeter and drier, but they are tasty now. Personally, I would pick ones I want for dinner and leave the rest on the vine until frost.
Thank you.
concur then when you do harvest them try to leave a good bit of stem on them. Use those without stems first as they will spoil first. Try to store in a dry warm space with good air. I put mine in my warm gh up on wire Costco baker racks.
Warm dry? I thought it was cool dry - like a dry basement, or floor of pantry
My dad kept his in his furnace room on shelfs above the furnace. It was a hor water boiler system so it was warm for sure. I put mine in my warm heated gh never under 50 thereand lots of winter day temp 80 or so..
Comparatively warm, yes, human warm, no. Winter squash should never be stored below 50F. 55-60F is about ideal.
Humidity should not exceed 85%, but relatively high humidity is recommended to prevent shriveling. 70-75% is about ideal.
I keep mine in my conditioned basement, which is about 60-65F during the winter and since I heat with gas I have fairly high humidity even when heating. Once it gets warmer outside, the basement get warmer (75) and drier (AC). I did an experiment and kept squash from last fall until July this year under those conditions.
It's tough stuff when cured properly; even if you can't hit "ideal" it'll keep for a long time.
Hope you have harvested your butternut by now. I harvest mine when the stems start drying. I actually prefer the butternut pulp over pumpkin pulp.
Got a few more lying out to harvest. A whole bunch of small ones are drying in the garage. Eating some roasted butternut soup right now!
Same thing happened to mine last summer, lost 1/2 my crop! After research, I determined the damage was caused by pickleworm, which comes from a Florida moth that migrates north beginning in May, I noticed it in middle July, but it took me until August to figure them out. Sounds like it took them a couple of months to make it up to Ct. One solution is cut out the bad part and eat the rest as a summer squash, but I did not know that you could do that at the time. I also thought you had to leave them on the vine to ripen, but even green Butternut will ripen in a about a month of warm storage, and keep fine, based on last year's experience. My solution this year will be to pick the entire crop at the first sign of them and replant a second crop and leave them on the vine until frost, unless the devils turn around and come back south!
This is what the damage looks like:
Most interesting - the damage to the butternut. Thanks for sharing. I have never seen anything like that - hope the pickleworm doesn't show up in Illinois. Looks like it is a type of borer.
Pickleworm is nasty. There's no real home garden control method. The overwinter in Florida and invade the southeast each year; I doubt you'll see them in Illinois.
This year I am planting early and at the first sign of pickleworms will pull my crop and replant for fall. I found out last year that an unripe squash will still cure up fine, or can be eaten as summer squash, either fried or grilled. I tried to eat the portions not invaded by the pickleworms last year, but my wife made me throw them out. I lost more than 1/2 of the harvest to the little devils! No squash is resistant to them, if they can bore into a butternut that I have a hard time cutting with a sharp knife then nothing is safe from them. Here is my strategy for this year:
Plant early varieties, harvest all fruits July 15 or at the first sign of them
Replant a second crop and I should be able to harvest before first frost
And I am planting more hills
