I'm glad to hear your harvest continues. All I'm getting now is watermelons, muskmelons, hot peppers, sweet peppers and southern peas, as the heat and a lack of watering on my part allowed a lot of the cherry tomato plants to die during the last two months with no rainfall. The fall tomatoes got watered enough to stay alive and have set some fruit the last 3 or 4 days, so we may get some small tomatoes to ripen before the first frost.

Do you have an outdoor grill with a burner on it? You could use that for canning if you, but you'll need to set up a wind shield of some sort to block the wind so that your burner stays evenly hot and doesn't cool down too much once the jars are in the canner.

Green cushaw probably has produced the largest non-pumpkin type winter squash I've ever grown. I bet some of them have weighed 30-35 lbs. You can store them indoors in a cool room (above 50 degrees but not roasting hot) and just slice pieces off and use them. Even with that cut area, as long as the room isn't hot and you have good air movement, the exposed cut end will dry up a bit, but it won't spoil. Or, if it does, cut off the spoiled part, toss it out on the compost pile, and the fresh flesh underneath the new cut should be fine.I'm pretty sure George has mentioned storing and slicing them that way before. Some people in colder parts of the country store them in basements that are unheated or that are deliberately kept on the cool side to prolong storage, sort of like having a root cellar. With large pumpkins or winter squash, I usually just cut off the rind, cook it down into its pureed form, and freeze it. After you thaw it, you can use it in exactly the same way you'd use canned pumpkin. I usually freeze it in those plastic freezer containers with red or green lids. If I run out of those when freezing a lot of stuff, I use Ball's plastic freezer jars and lids. I don't know if you have access to a deep freeze though. You also could dry it if you have access to a dehydrator or a convection oven with a dehydrate mode.

If you have ever read the marvelous (and highly recommended by me) book "Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden", you might remember that the women in her tribe sliced squash into rounds, strung them on string and hung them to dry. I seem to remember they also laid the slices on top of the roof of their little drying shelter to do some of the dehydrating too, weather conditions permitting, but I've never tried that myself. : ) While I enjoyed reading about how they gardened (they worked so incredibly hard with hand tools), it was even more fascinating to see how they preserved their food back them without so many of the modern conveniences we have nowadays.

Most winter squash will last longer if cured at warm temperatures before being stored. I think maybe Acorn squash is the exception to the rule, but I don't grow it because here at our house Acorn squash is a pest magnet.

Yay Kim! My neglected tomato plants and bearing fruit again. peppers are going crazy

Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden is a good read.

Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden

That is one of the best books. I had it on my list of things to read again so I am glad y'all reminded me.

I should get about 12 cushaw and if I am going to store all these squash I will have to make room under my bed lol. I think my son is concerned about where all the harvest is going to be kept.

I just picked 6 bushels of pears from my friend and probably have another 20 to go get. I am cooking in my slow cooker running thru the mill and freezing.

I do have a deep and upright freezer but my son filled them with corn on the cob he got from his friend. I was proud of him blanching and freezing all that corn.

It feels so good to put up some of this year's harvest.

Why are my pictures distorted?

I never did get my pumpkins planted this year. I will be sure and get them planted next year. I wanted to grow those little white ones and the little orange ones for my grandson, but with the weather I never got my ground ready. Try again next year.

luvncannin, I don't see anything wrong with your pictures.

What is wrong with me and pumpkins?!

I planted Seminole and Old Fashioned Tennessee Vining in July. Some of them have long vines and male blossoms. The Seminole has had a few female blossoms, but they shrivel, turn brown, and fall off while they are still teeny tiny. They never even open. This happened last year, but I assumed it was SVB. The types I planted this year shouldn't have that problem. Why?! I just want some stinkin' pumpkins!

Your little orange pumpkin is cute, luvncannin.

Kim, I'm proud of your son too. Corn on the cob does take up a lot of room in the freezer, but it is so worth it. When you cook it in the dead of winter, when it is cold and miserable outdoors, you get to have summer all over again while you're eating that yummy corn. We had corn on the cob on labor day and just eating it made me feel that summer was just beginning instead of winding down (well, I hope summer is winding down!). Putting up the harvest is wonderful and I'm glad you've been able to put up so much food this year. It becomes addictive, you know. I'm never happy until the canning jars and freezers are full.

Stockergal, This was the worst spring for getting anything done. I only got one of the two big fenced gardens planted. The back garden was too wet forever, and by the time it wasn't too wet it had head-high weeds and snakes, so I just left it the way it was. I hope to clean it up good this fall so it is ready for spring, but I'm not touching it until snake season has ended. It is too wild back there.

I don't see anything wrong with the photos either, Kim.

Hazel, With pumpkins it is hard to say. If you had regular rainfall in heavy amounts in July and August, it likely was some sort of bacterial or fungal disease. It also could have been some kind of insect pest feeding on the flowers, like thrips or cucumber beetles. Did you grow anything related to pumpkins like maybe squash or cucumbers? If so, how did they do? With those three being so closely related, it would be odd if 2 of the 3 did well but the third did not. Does your soil drain well?

Dawn

I can relate to most of the above info. Like Dawn, I filled all of the canning jars and even bought a few, but anything else that gets canned this year has to be stored in a jar we have just emptied because I used all I had and refused to buy more. I probably would buy more if I ever saw them on sale, but they never get marked down here, even in the dead of winter.

Now the storage part...where will I put it? The empty jars aren't hard to store because they can be stored anywhere without worrying about temperature fluctuations, but once they are full, that becomes an issue. I have given away a lot of things to friends and family, but I will still be trying to create space this week. They have been on the end of my dining table long enough.

My squash vines don't look nice and healthy like the pictures above but they still have a lot of squash on them. I hope the vines stay healthy enough for the squash to mature. It seems to be just the older part of the vine that looks bad though. They aborted a lot of small squash that I'm sure didn't get pollinated, but there will be plenty left. I had one Seminole squash that fell from the vine at 3.3 pounds. Will it still be tasty? It is still dark green and looks nice. I found it within a day or two and brought it inside.

My pole beans that had not produced well this year (for the first time ever) have now started to produce. I had not planned to preserve any, so a few to eat is fine with me. I am still picking a few cucumbers from my Spring vines, but they really need to be yanked out. I have a few more slicing types that have better looking vines, but getting to them is an issue because of the sweet potato vines that are huge.

Luvincannin - That's a lot of pears. I still have canned pears and pear butter from a previous year, so thanks for the reminder that they need to be used. I kind of forget to use pears since they are not my first choice in the fruit department. I did apples in extra light syrup, apple butter, sweet cherry compote 3 different ways, and froze blueberries this year. I canned one batch of peaches, but just made the remainder into pies and froze the pies.

Since most of my garden had not been planted for 2 years, I had a real weed and grass problem and never got the entire garden planted. I have started the Fall clean-up, but it will be a long process. There is always next year for a better garden, right? I hope to get a cold frame finished before the cold weather arrives. There is just not enough time between the scorching summer heat and the cold weather to get all of the projects finished.

I do not like posting from my phone.

I just lost the whole thing I typed and I am slow. The pics on my phone are squashed flat and distorted. Just the ones I post.

I am struggling to figure out how to get all this canned. I want at least 100 jars of pear sauce and 20 or 30 pints of ketchup. As soon as I get gas and water I will be flying thru this I hope.

The little pumpkins are sugar pie and since I got the corn out of the way they went wild..probably too late to do much but I should get about 6. I am thrilled I have anything since I neglected the garden so bad during July when I was trying to move.

Next year next year next year

Okiedawn,

Like you I used to puree pumpkin to freeze. But I have found that if you cut the pumpkin in half and rake out all the seeds and rub cooking oil over the rind and turn the cut side down on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 45 - 60 min. the pulp can be spooned out of the pumpkin shell into a freezer bag and put in the freezer with out added water and much easier to work with. Others may not like this way but I think it makes it easier for me. May be this will help someone I hope.

That's a great idea. I cook all my winter squash that way.

(I better fix this), I was thinking of something else, the pumpkin doesn't need oil ribbed on the shell, you don't have to put any thing on it just turn it cut side down and bake. It helps to put a sheet of parchment paper in the cookie sheet to help with clean up. 45 - 60 min. is for pie pumpkins, a larger pumpkin may take a little longer to bake. The pumpkin can be put in a food processor to puree more but mine are fine out of the shell.

I cook them that way too, Auther. When I used the word puree, I just meant that I cooked the winter squash and pumpkins down into a softer form before putting the pumpkin flesh into freezer containers and freezing it. I should have stated it more clearly. I don't actually put them in the blender and puree them.

Kim, There are several ways to grind corn down to meal.

Hmmm. I assume you don't have a grain mill? That would be the standard way, preferably one that is not hand-cranked because that would involve a lot of hand-cranking and your arm might fall off. The hand-cranked mills can start as low as $25 or $30 and some people find ways to hook them up to some sort of engine to do the cranking for them.

If you have a very strong, heavy duty blender like a VitaMix, some people grind corn using their Vitamix. Some people have success grinding small amounts of corn with a coffee grinder or an herb mill. The key to success is to hang the corn and let it air dry until all the kernels are thoroughly dry so that they don't get mushy and stick in the grinder.

If you have a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer, they sell an all-metal grain mill attachment that can be used with it.

Or, you know, all you need is a grinding stone.......although I think that is the last way I'd want to do it.

Dawn

I think the stone would be fun for like 5 minutes. But after that I'd like to have electric. Lol

Okiedawn,

I do apologize for my jumping to the wrong conclusion. I used to cut the pumpkin shell into pieces and trim off the pulp into cubes and boil them in water until soft which took a lot of time not to mention adding a lot of water to the pulp. My better half doesn't make many pumpkin pies with the pumpkin, she usually makes it up in pumpkin bread which I like better. I think that the baked pumpkin pulp is better for this.

I did a lot of searching for the cheapest manual/electric mill and it's the Wonder Grain Mill. There is more than one version. You can get one that is manual but can be hooked up to an electric component by simply removing the handle. You can even use a drill to spin it. The cost was less expensive than most others but the quality holds up well. I just wanted to put that out there, so people don't need to spend hours trying to figure each one out. Don't get the Danish cast iron. It's pretty. It's heavy. It's expensive. But it's limited in its function. You want one that will grind both dry and wet.

I have a manual grinder now and I'm very happy with it (Thank you, sir.) The hand turning is very good for me.

Kim, I agree.

Auther, No apology is necessary. One of my favorite ways to use winter squash is in pumpkin-chocolate chip cookies. I am a pumpkin maniac and will eat it in anything though, and I love both pumpkin pie and pumpkin cake. One of my favorite cakes is called Pumpkin Pie Cake, and it is the best of both the pie and the cake world.

Bon, Some of us have reached the age where hand-turning might make our aging arms fall off our bodies. (grin) Enjoy your youth while it lasts.

Dawn

Dawn, about my pumpkins. Our ground is very hard. In fact the guy who built our new workshop last week, said it's the hardest ground he's ever worked with. It's not red clay--I'm not sure what it is. And it varies on the property. However, the pumpkin mounds are a mixture of our soil, garden dirt and compost that I bought and mixed together. Most of my plants in the ground (not raised beds) are planted that way--it a small hill.

The summer squash and zucchini are in the back garden a half-acre away, and most of the cucumbers were back there too. I did have 3 cucumbers planted a few feet away from the pumpkins. Not real close, but sorta close. The purchased Bonnie cucumber plant did not produce but one fruit. It grew but wasn't very healthy looking. The two that I started from seed did a little better. In fact I left them lying on the ground and they're still making a couple of little cukes. I did use a trellis on the Bonnie cucumber that I'm now using on the Seminole, but I wiped it down with bleach and rinsed--so as not to spread "germs". I do not see any bugs on the pumpkin plants. The older leaves are yellowing and some have died, but they're all still putting out new healthy leaves. Maybe it has to do with watering. I'm not sure I have watering down yet. And I planted the seeds at the "wrong" moon phase--not sure if that makes a difference.

Hazel, I talked about the soil food web, how important it is (and how its absence can lead to plants that just sit there and don't grow well or produce much) and what I do to try to feed my soil food web, but I didn't go into much detail about what makes up the soil food web. Rather than starting from scratch and describing it, I found a great explanation of it in the document linked below.

I feel like your cucurbits are a sign that your soil food web is struggling, and it is easier to fix it than it sounds. One of my favorite ways in the early days was to beg all my rancher friends for their old spoiled day. They thought I wanted mulch and offered me fresh, clean hay, which was just exceptionally kind of them. I told them "No, I want the old moldy stuff". Of course they thought I was nuts, but that old moldy hay already was decaying and that's why I wanted it---to add bacterial, fungi and other microbial life to my soil. Once they understood that, they regularly gave me old spoiled hay, sometimes just showing up with a truck or trailer load and dumping it by my garden. I was in hog heaven! Once they saw how quickly the soil improved, then they understood why I had wanted something that they used to just burn in order to dispose of it....the concept that one man's trash is another man's treasure amused them until they saw how well that trash/treasure improved the soil.

I don't know if I'd do it the same way nowadays. Back then, the persistent herbicides that are persisting and causing "killer compost" even after organic matter decomposes were not in use or at least their use was not yet widespread. Once a lot of our friends started using those sorts of herbicides on their hay fields. I no longer could use their old hay because it contained herbicide residues that would kill or severely damage my veggies. That's when I switched over to using grass clippings, although I do still have one ranching neighbor who doesn't spray his native fields with those herbicides, so I occasionally get old hay from him.

Once you fix the soil, everything else falls into place just magically.

Dawn

The Soil Food Web

Thanks for all the useful information, Dawn. I have a few questions, but I'll start another thread soon--didn't mean to hijack this one.

You're welcome.