When life gives you squash — take it
The little shoots came up by surprise, under the “Peggy Martin” and “Burgundy Iceberg” roses, a few weeks after I emptied the compost bin along the back fence line.
Squash, I reckoned. I had no idea what kind. I didn’t think it would survive.
I love squash, especially the hard-skinned winter varieties, which are properly planted in spring — acorn and butternut among them. But the cucurbits have never liked me.
A number of my friends grow so much zucchini and summer squash they can’t give it all away. I seem to excel instead at raising squash borers — disgusting little cream-colored larvae that get into plants at the base and turn them to mush from the inside-out, overnight. Liberal sprinklings of diatomaceous earth have not helped.
Planting different varieties of squash, from seed and transplants, hasn’t helped.
Making sure I’m planting at the right time hasn’t helped. (The entire month of March
is the window for the Houston area.)
Well, gardens will do their thing, regardless of the humans who think they are in charge. You never know what will sprout when you spread the compost. I’ve grown some of my most prolific tomatoes by accident, that way, in the middle of flower beds.
The first tissue-thin blossom of my squash volunteers sprouted, a creamy golden starburst surrounded by weeds. Within a week, a tiny squash had started to form. It was not oblong, like a zucchini. And there were more, on a halfdozen plants.
Early this week, like a hawk eyeing its prey, that first, nearly full-size acorn squash was more than 3 inches in diameter, almost ready to pick. I’ve counted a few more of the pleated beauties under the big leaves, and watered just once.
The residuals of last January’s hard freeze have brought heartache elsewhere in the garden this spring: The olive tree, an althea and a bottle brush failed to return; the pear trees and the Meyer lemon didn’t bloom; the fig and a row of young Barbados cherries are limping back to life.
This acorn squash bounty is probably a once-in-a-gardener’s-lifetime kind of event.
Now, a different kind of pressure is on: Which recipe, to properly celebrate?