A gourd for all seasons

Don't hate them because they're bountiful.

In Colorado, where March toasts, April fakes, May roasts and June bakes — if it doesn't hail, that is — the lowly but super-productive squash is a good problem to have.

So you, with the zucchini: Put down the joke book. If you want to eat from your garden all year, winter and summer squash are your ticket to four-season culinary happiness.

In her Gunbarrel front-yard garden of close to 100 open-pollinated heirlooms, Sharon Vadas- Arendt always makes room for a rare squash variety — and not just one plant of it, but 10 to 15.

This year, it's the winter squash Greek Sweet Red.

"I liked it so much last year, and last year I only grew three plants. So this year
I'm going to put in seven or eight, so that over the two years, I'll have had about 10 plants."

Why so many? Vadas-Arendt, an atmospheric scientist by profession, saves her seeds to offer to other heirloom aficionados through Seed Savers Exchange, based in Decorah, Iowa. She specializes in peppers, but also loves growing a well-adapted squash or two, even though the labor to keep the seed from being cross-pollinated is an intense affair involving taping the flowers.

She received seeds for Hopi winter squashes — Hopi Orange, Hopi White and Hopi Pale Grey — from a rare-seed supplier in Washington just before the seed bank was ravaged by a fire, and continues to offer their seeds through Seed Savers.

"They do beautifully here," she says. "They're sweet — you don't need to put any brown sugar on them. They cook great in the microwave; they make delicious pies and soups."

Best of all, she says, "they're fantastic keepers. Not all winter squash keep well."

Summer squash

Nothing says full summer like a sprawling squash plant in full, bright-yellow blossom. The plants are easy to grow; they draw a pollinating, solitary, non-aggressive bee, and you can eat the flowers or the fruit — or, as some growers do, pick the fruits at about 3 inches long, with their demurely folded flowers still attached.

A legion of zucchini types exists — from heirloom Italian or French ribbed squashes that slice into starry shapes, to the classic, black-green "Black Beauty," to French hybrids and yes, round zucchini — look for "Rond de Nice," "Eight Ball" or "Geode" varieties. "Bush Baby" is a short, fat mini.

If you've had a problem keeping your zucchini picked because you kept overlooking squashes hiding in the foliage, try one of the yellow varieties, such as "Gold Rush," and "Floridor," which is a round, yellow zuke. If you like your zucchini without ambitions, go for a bush variety.

Yellow squash and patty pan squashes — the kind that look like little flying saucers — add color to the garden and the plate. Just be sure to pick them young; many patty pan squashes become hard and seedy if grown large . For a summer squash that combines green and yellow, try "Zephyr"; they can look like little bowling pins.

Vadas-Arendt grows a Hungarian variety that a friend in Budapest sent her. "It's two weeks earlier than Black Beauty and just as good in quality and flavor. Last year it went all the way to frost."

Larry Propp, a retired educator who judges vegetables in a host of Front Range counties and at the Colorado State Fair, says there's only one type of summer squash he avoids.

"I don't like the yellow crooknecks because if you let them get too big and too old, the shell gets too hard," he warns. Vadas- Arendt concurs — sort of: "You've got to pick them young and cook them right. Don't let them get seedy."

Winter varieties

A patch of winter squash in a garden tells you this gardener is able to delay gratification. All squashes are warm-weather plants, but the winter squashes often need 85 to 110 days to reach maturity. And they'll need some room — don't forget those giant leaves will be pumping nutrients into 12-pound fruits, in some cases. Locate winter squash hills 4 or 5 feet from one another so the vines can ramble and sprawl.

Propp says buttercup, butternut and acorn varieties are easy to grow on the Front Range, but he has some favorite winter squashes he'd like to see more gardeners grow:

Sweet dumpling squashes. Just smaller than a pie pumpkin, this two-serving squash has light yellow, sweet flesh and a peel that's not too thick.

Delicata. A long, thin, yellow-and-green striped squash, also with a relatively thin peel. "In my mind, they're the best of all for serving two to three people."

Spaghetti. "They work really well in a home garden." You can pick them as small as a softball or as large as a cantaloupe. And they're quite possibly the easiest to cook of all the winter squashes. Once cooked, they can be substituted for zucchini in quick- bread recipes.

Vadas-Arendt loves her Greek and Hopi varieties, and not just for their historical cachet of having been grown in the West for centuries.

"They grow so fast and are so vigorous, they outgrow most pests," she says. The year she grew Hopi White, she says, "I remember it being beautiful, the white glowing in the moonlight." And Hopi Pale Grey's immature fruit were "sweet and delicious," her copious notes tell her.

Don't rattle their roots

Because squash are warm-weather plants, they shouldn't be direct-seeded into the garden until about a week after last frost date — late May along the Front Range. Transplants can go into the garden now — but delicately. Cucurbits, the genus that includes squash, pumpkins, melons and cucumbers, resent having their roots disturbed. Plant transplants in their peat pots, perhaps tearing open a side or two of the pot before setting in the ground.

Propp likes to see a 3- to 6-inch hill for every few squash plants and at least 9 square feet for each plant. It helps if the hill is sunk into an area of lower ground, or a trench system, because squash like to be watered consistently and deeply.

"I do not water anything with aerial sprinkling anymore," he says. "Aerial watering of squash leads to leaf mold, and can knock the pollen off of the flowers." His squash plants at home have a drip system, but just as good, he says, is the old trench and flood.

Fending off invaders

There's a bad fairy in this paradise of brilliant and edible blossoms. He's gray, he's flat, and he's got attitude and appetite.

If bugs could hope, Anasa tristis, the squash bug, would hope that you would read this and plant lots of squash.

Close together, please, a few pumpkins and butternuts and oh, if he must, he'll dine on zucchini. Put lots of nice mulch around the base of the plant — mmm, shady and cool and dark in the heat of the day.

No, just leave those copper bumps underneath the leaves alone. Eggs? What eggs?

Move along, nothing to see here. . .

Squash bugs are so tough, even state entomologist and avid vegetable gardener Whitney Cranshaw avoids their turf.

"I don't grow the more susceptible plants," he says. "Winter squash and pumpkins are their favorites."

Vadas-Arendt says that's another reason she grows the Hopi squashes and her Hungarian zucchini. In addition to growing faster than the bugs can destroy them, they seem to attract fewer of the pests.

A. tristis overwinters near gardens, hunkering down until the first squash plants appear. The bugs fly in to feed on those plants, quickly mate and lay distinctive egg masses on the undersides of leaves where veins meet. Let that second generation hatch, and their voraciousness can mean premature death for the plant.

But there are defenses, Cranshaw says. First, putting non-host species between squash plants may help. Squash bug nymphs must go through several stages of molting before they become mature; the nymphs feed as the adults do, but can't yet fly to explore what else you've got for them to wreck.

Next, exercise constant vigilance. Check plants at least weekly for egg masses and crush them when they appear. Crush any adults you see.

Keep mulch away from the base of the plants; get as much air and light around there as you can. Deny them a hiding place.

Finally, diatomaceous earth around the base of squash plants can help; it's benign enough to be permitted in certified organic cultivations.

"The key is to get the first generation when they're small — the first half of June," Cranshaw says. "Nail 'em then. Get 'em before they breed. If you do a good job then, you'll keep their numbers down."

Vadas-Arendt has a trick she uses to thwart a cutworm that attacks squash seedlings:

"Plant a little, 3-inch-long stick right next to each little stem." The stick prevents the worm from encircling the seedling.

To help thwart the powdery mildew that often besets squash leaves in the late season, she uses a spray made of 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon mild dish or hand soap, about 2 teaspoons of milk, shaken in two cups of water. "You can get an extra three weeks out of your plants this way."