Don't Bother with THESE Winter Squash....A Waste of Garden Space

[Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] hi everybody welcome to living traditions homestead my name is Sarah this is my husband Kevin and we are winding down the gardening season and we're starting to pull some of the squash the winter squash out of the garden and so we thought we'd sit down and share with you some of our successes and a lot of our failures actually from this year in regards to winter squash the number one thing that we learned this year about squash is that we have a lot to learn about squash yes this year we made some kind of last-minute decisions about varieties of squash that we were going to plant and most of those came back to bite us right in the butt yes after we had planned out our garden we realized that we had one extra row kind of right in the middle of the garden that we didn't have a plan for and we realized that at that point we didn't have a lot of winter squash planted and so we decided to look for some to experiment with we were short on space because it was in between rows so we decided to look up some Bush variety of winter squash I pulled out the Baker Creek seed catalog because that is very close to us we wouldn't have to order anything online we could just run over there get the seeds and get back and so we decided on four different varieties of Bush winter squash and to be honest with you most of them didn't work out right I would say for sure there's two of them that will never plant again the other two are kind of up for debate depending on maybe if we could plant them kind of away from the garden a little bit right we might try them again but well let's just talk about some of the problems that we had well before we move on to problems we did grow two varieties in the rest of the garden that are like standard just binding right winter squash and we have those over here so these for the bush the bush varieties these two are the standard binding varieties right and the the vine varieties which we've done in the past did really well overall they did well yeah they they still had some problems with squash bugs but I think most of the problems that they had with squash bugs were caused by the bush varieties that we did one row over in the garden right so let's just be really clear okay we had a terrible problem this year in the garden especially with these squash with squash bugs and the vine borers right and not just not just a lot of bugs but like a lot of bugs I mean we've never experienced squash bugs like this ever in our lives there was absolutely nothing we could do to keep up with them you know initially we tried to just find as many as we could and pick them off that I mean just there was no way we would have had to been out there 12 hours a day right it was an epidemic right it was awful so really all of these plants had to just survive on their natural resistance to squash bugs if they had any right and I think we did a video earlier in the year while we were in the middle of that problem so I'll leave a link to that up there yeah so really they either made it or they didn't and so let's talk about the four Bush plants which really was the source of the problem and how each one did right let's start with the worst ones first the worst one for sure was this Bush variety spaghetti squash it has a really long name to it I will list all of these varieties down in the description of this video I can't even pronounce the name of this Mac something yeah it's a it's two polish words to the Polish kind of squash it did terrible I think it actually got hit both by the the borer the vine borer and the squash bugs we have not had one single squash that is salvageable and the ones that we thought were okay we brought into the house have started rotting from the inside out it was very discouraging yeah they still feel okay but when you cut them open they're completely rotten inside all of them are gonna have to go to the pigs right so so this is one we definitely would not do again even though I think we have some learning to do I don't think that the problems that we had with these were really anything we did wrong right I think they are just super susceptible absolutely the bug damage so for us trying to grow all of our old food just not worth you know spending time on a variety that's going to be that susceptible to bugs right and we really need varieties of squash that will do well over the winter last year we can some of our butternut squash and while it was successful to do that when we've used them it we have really not like the consistency of it very watery mushy we didn't like it at all so it's good in soups and that type of thing right but not really so good just to eat once it's been caned right so we need varieties and are going to laughed over the winter right the next variety that we probably will never grow again it is called Kukai I'll put that in the description and I chose this because I'm really interested in finding a pumpkin that has a homeless seed and it's just I just that's just what I want and these guys were very susceptible obviously to the bugs and we've only had about fifty percent success rate actually getting them into the house and not having them rot and out of four plants we've gotten six pumpkins right yeah I would definitely say just based on how the plants did overall even before the bugs got really bad the plants just they didn't seem to do really well right I don't know if it's our environment or what it is but yeah I would agree these are probably out for next year right the next on the list here these are baby blue blue Hubbard's and we chose these because blue huh birds are super popular but they get really big so we wanted to try the baby ones because as a family we're not gonna be able to eat a 20-pound squash in one sitting these guys were prolific they put on a lot of fruit and those that grew fast and hard and fast developed fast those survived but the plants overall were hit hard by the bugs right so like I said the the squash that that grew fast developed fast those we've been able to bring into the house now we have ten of these in the house that have survived right that's a four plant also for plants now this is a variety that we kind of picked the last minute I mean after doing more research of course after the bugs got bad we did more research about it and this is actually one of the worst varieties the Hubbard squash in general are one of the worst varieties for attracting squash squash bugs so we didn't know that when we planted them and I really in my gut kind of feel like these right here are the root of most of our squash bug troubles for this year because most of the bugs started on these plants and then spread to everything else right the next squash is the table gold acorn squash and these guys we had a we had trouble up front with the vine borers we actually had to replant two or three of the seeds because it the young plants got hit and died so I replanted these guys are also very prolific and those that reached maturity quickly survived and came into the house but those that lingered really got hit hard another drawback to these plants is the outer shell area must not be very hard because we've had a lot of bugs be able to bore inside of them and then rot them from the inside out right we've had a lot of these come into the house and they're doing okay probably twelve or more of them are in the house ready for us to eat right I don't think they'll make it overwinter no they seem like Sarah said the the outside seemed pretty soft now the one nice thing about these is you can grow these as either a summer squash or a winter squash now we tried to grow these as a winter squash and let them you know go to maturity to bring them in the house but we could have picked these when they were about half this size and used them like a zucchini or like you know like a summer squash so that's why I put this one on the maybe list because I would give it another shot but pick them when they're young and use them fresh over the summer yeah another thing that I discovered after I went back I looked at reviews on the Baker group website on this and people had said number one it doesn't store well number two with not a sweet winter squash that's gonna be on the bitter side and definitely better as a summer squash like Kevin said right so those were all the bush varieties these were our last-minute choices and I think that we kind of you know it bit us in the end too to make these tasty choices now the good part is it's also inspired us for this winter to spend a lot of time researching squash varieties that are more Hardy more you know less prone to getting a bug damaged so that's gonna be something this winter well you know you're just getting that itch to get out in the garden and start planting that's gonna be something that we can spend some time researching and hopefully find some better varieties for next year one new thing we're gonna try next year is actually mixing up where we plant our winter squash plants not in the garden we're gonna try some new spots all together definitely not planting any squash in the current garden location next year right no way yeah we are making an entirely new garden next year if you haven't seen the video where we started on that I'll put a link up there but even in that new garden the plan is not to try any of these winter squash varieties next year now we're gonna try them actually just kind of off we might try some down by our pond we might try some in just different areas on the property and just see how they do we have a friend who kind of grows hers that way and it keeps those bugs out of the garden right and you know you can plant a bunch of them and if you know some of them make it and some don't but that's something we're gonna try next year to just hopefully give the garden a rest and maybe try to break the cycle of some of those bugs right now the standard vining squash we did the butternut wall thumb and we did the New England sugar Pye they did well overall they did get stunted by the squash bugs but they recovered right and ended up doing well lots of butternut squash still on the vine ripening and we ended up with six of the sugar pie pumpkins I would have liked more but I'll take what I can get they're in really great shape yeah they did really well and again I really think if we had not planted these that these would have not gotten any damage at all from bugs I think all of the damage I think all of the bugs started on these and then spread to other things so that's something you know we need to learn for next year so we need your help you guys we need names of winter squash plants that have done well for you it can be an heirloom variety it can be a hybrid bush or vining we need ideas from you so that over the winter we can start planning our gardening for next year yeah you guys gave us some great advice on our Tomatoes when we did a similar video talking about which Tomatoes did well and which ones dint and we really appreciate it we take lots of notes and that will help us a lot for next year so you guys if this is your first time on our homestead we sure do appreciate you coming to visit we hope that you'll hit that subscribe button before you leave if you're one of our traditionalists hey guys this is the time we need your help once again please so don't forget also to share this video on all of your social media so that your friends can help us as well and until next time thanks for stopping by the homestead take care and God bless

Channel: Living Traditions Homestead

Views: 361,503

Keywords: Living Traditions Homestead, Missouri, Ozark's, homesteading, Ozarks, self-sufficient, homesteaders, unjobbing, winter squash, waltham butternut squash, kakai squash, new england sugar pie pumpkin, golden table acorn squash, baby blue hubbard, growing winter squash, squash bugs and winter squash, vine borer and winter squash, butternut squash, organic garden, organic gardening, kevin and sarah, homesteading couple

Id: rru3ly7hp-o

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 18 2018