ABOUT SQUASH

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Winter squash are perfect for baking. Just cut them in half, remove the seeds (which can be dried and roasted) along with the stringy pulp, and sprinkle the flesh with brown sugar and spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg. Place the baking dish in a pan of water, and bake the squash at 350°F until tender, which can take from 10 to 30 minutes.

Though some bush and semibush types are now available, the sprawling vines of most winter squash take up more garden space than do summer varieties. Their fruits come in an assortment of sizes, shapes and colors, but fall into six main groups—butternut, acorn, buttercup, delicious, Hubbard and banana—with a mind-boggling array of cultivars to choose from in each category.

Butternuts produce eight- to 12-inch-long fruits with tan skins and fine-tasting orange flesh. The vines usually need plenty of room to spread, but Burpee's Butterbush, a compact butternut variety, requires only three to four feet of garden space and produces one-and-a-half-pound fruits in approximately 75 days.

Acorns, or pepper squash, mature in 80 to 90 days and have dark green to yellow fruits that weigh one to two pounds and are round and usually furrowed. Though acorns don't keep as well as other winter squash, they're versatile and productive. One bush type, Table King (80 days, yielding large fruits with smooth, dark green skins), is a popular acorn variety, but give Jersey Golden a try. It takes only 50 days to mature, and its butter yellow flesh tastes a bit like sweet corn.

Buttercups, or turbans, which keep well, are considered by many gardeners to be among the most sumptuous of winter squash. For a tasty bush variety, try Sweet Mama (85 days). Its two- to three-pound, mild-flavored fruits will store for up to four months, and the plant is resistant to fusarium wilt and vine borers.

Delicious varieties include Golden Delicious (100 days), which, along with its top vitamin content, tastes so tempting that it's often used in baby foods. However, Green Delicious (102 days) produces medium-sized, dark green, heart-shaped fruits that are better for storing, and it's one winter squash that's excellent for freezing.

Hubbards, which can weigh as much as 30 pounds, are the best type for winter storing, though it would take a huge appetite or a large family to polish off one of these giant-sized fruits in a single meal. Most gardeners prefer the smaller varieties, such as Golden Hubbard (90 days), whose moderately warted, orange-red, eight-pound shells contain flesh that's deep orange.

Bananas are even bigger, growing as large as 75 pounds. Though usually pink-skinned, there's an unusually colored one called Green Banana that reaches only 25 to 30 pounds.

How to Grow

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