Squash From Farm to Fork
Welcome to my page all about squash! Here you will find information taking you from the farm to your fork. This includes tried and true recipes for squash and zucchini, planting, harvesting, and preserving tips for all things squash.
The best part of raising your own farm-fresh squash is the superior taste without the grocery store price and flavorless produce. Read on to learn how to take a squash seed from the farm to your table using your very own backyard.
Quick Links to Topics on this Page:
- Favorite Squash Recipes
- Planting Squash
- Maintaining Healthy Squash Plants
- Harvesting Squash
- Preserving Squash
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Favorite Squash Recipes
We are very basic with most of our garden vegetables and typically just roast or air fry them. In fact, you can substitute most vegetables for the roasted squash recipe and get a yummy treat. Another easy way to prepare zucchini is to make zoodles with a spiral vegetable cutter and just saute them with a little salt & pepper. You can serve this all by itself or add tomato sauce for a low-carb mock spaghetti.
Find our favorite squash recipes below or keep scrolling through to find info about raising squash and/or zucchini in your backyard garden. I hope you enjoy them and feel free to share your favorite squash recipes with me!
Planting Squash
If this is your first garden consider reading Gardening 101 to get off to a good start. We typically plant squash and zucchini from seeds in mounds with 4-5 seeds on each mound. They can also be planted indoors 3-4 weeks before the last frost to get a jump start on the season. They need to be planted after the last frost in an area that sees at least 6 hours of full sun.
This year I started a few squash and zucchini seeds inside for the first time, so here’s hoping for some transplant success! I found a new mail-order seed provider called Vegetable Seed Warehouse that has excellent customer service, quality seeds, and speedy delivery.
Maintaining Healthy Squash Plants
Squash plants need 1-2 inches of water per week. Squash plants are susceptible to attack from squash bugs, so they need to be checked frequently for squash bug eggs on the underside of the plant’s leaves. Eggs if found should be squished.
The bugs damage the plants and eventually cause the leaves to turn brown and die. Squash bugs will find overwinter spots in the garden off-season, so it’s a good idea to practice crop rotation in your garden plan.
Harvesting Squash
Most varieties of squash reach maturity in 60 days; check the seed packet or provider for exact timing. Squash can be harvested when they are the desired size and color. They will not continue to ripen off the vine.
Do not allow the squash to get too large as they will grow very large seeds. When you are picking squash you need to cut the stems with a sharp knife leaving at least an inch of stem. Avoid breaking them off as you may damage the stem of the plant.
A healthy squash plant will be plentiful all summer long and produce up to 10 lbs of squash per plant. Unfortunately, more often than not squash plants don’t last too terribly long. So enjoy them while they are producing. Read on for how to preserve them to stretch them even further.
Preserving Squash
If you have more than a few plants the fresh squash could be overwhelming. Besides sharing with your friends and neighbors, here are a few ways to preserve squash and zucchini before they go to waste.
We usually just eat squash fresh but it can be easily pickled or made into a relish. They can also be cubed, blanched, and frozen for future use in soup, stir-fries, and casseroles.
Another way to preserve zucchini in a sweet treat is to make zucchini bread and freeze it for a later time. The trick to maintaining the moisture in the bread is to wrap the bread in tin foil directly when it comes out of the oven and put it into a freezer-safe Ziploc bag.
If you don’t have time to bake the bread and might like to make a chocolate zucchini cake later, you can just grate or food process extra zucchini and freeze it in 1 cup bags. Then you can defrost the zucchini in small batches when you are ready to use it.
I hope this squash post from farm to fork helps you get the most of the squash in your garden or gets you started on growing squash in a future garden.
Blog Posts about Hobby Farming
Check out the blog for more information about what’s new at Barton Craft & Barn including the following post about our hobby farming experiences.
Failure to Thrive
There are affiliate links in this post. I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. The garden is associated with so many life lessons, I’ll share one here about failing to thrive. Working in the garden, which I will admit was not always my favorite task, has become a…
What is Hobby Farming?
What is hobby farming? The pros and cons of having a hobby farm. And what is in the mystery box? bartoncraftbarn.com
New Beginnings
We had some new beginnings on the farm this weekend…the ducklings are here! Is there anything cuter than baby ducks? These sweet ducklings arrived yesterday, all the way from California! We love them already! The kids are still working on names, but they have already claimed a favorite. They are determined to bond with them…
Just Getting Started Gardening?
I put together a list of my top garden tools to help the newbie get the needed gardening essentials. If you are getting started gardening, or want to be more prepared this season, check out the printable in my free resource library for my favorite garden tools to get your gardening on. Hope you enjoy!