GROWING BUTTERNUT SQUASH

(Keywords: Growing Butternut Squash, Easy Butternut Squash SOUP, Recipe for Butternut Squash SOUP )

The Butternut belongs to the pumpkin family and shares with it the value of all brightly coloured vegetables. Rich in bioflavanoids with all their benefits.

Growing them is not difficult, but they have a long growing season, so in the far northern climes, it's best to plant them in a seedbox, kept indoors at night until all signs of frost are over. Plant them out in the garden in early April.

In warmer climates, simply plant them directly into the ground in the spring. The seeds are quite large so plant them fairly deep - perhaps an inch, 2-3 cm, and gently compact the soil.

Prolific feeders

To get a decent crop when growing butternut squash it's best to dig out a small trench and fill it with well rotted manure, vegetable cuttings, grass clippings, compost and waste from the kitchen. Eggshells, potato peels, apple cores, tea leaves ... all are fine.

In fact, well ahead of time, I choose the site for growing butternut squash, dig out the trench, and use it as a compost heap, covering the vegetable waste with soil periodically. Then in spring all is ready.

Plant 6-10 seeds out, and weed out the weeker seedlings. Keep perhaps 3-4, more than adequate for the average family. Or they will take over your whole garden!

Butternut tends to be untidy, seeking out the sun, so you can grow it up a fence, on netting, but we just let it meander, and move the tendrils when it heads for other seed beds.

Or, if you have a small garden that must be kept tidy ...

Growing Butternut Squash: Reaping the fruit

They are pollinated by insects, bees especially love the flowers. Avoid insecticides, they don't get stung badly because of their hard stems.

This chappy isn't quite ready. The colour is still a bit greenish, wait for it to turn a light brownish colour .. when all the leaves and stems have died back. These stems are still green. However, they may get sunburnt without the leaves to shade them, if the sun is still fierce ...

Easy Butternut Squash Soup

Recipe for Butternut Squash SOUP

1. Chicken bone bouillon for stock...
   
   
2. One roughly chopped large onion. (you're going to liquidise the whole)

3. Cut the butternut into slices about two centimetres thick, and peel using a STRONG potato peeler. The hardest part of the whole exercise! You can of course avoid cutting yourself by getting someone else to hold the butternut whilst you chop it!

4. Peel three large potatoes, or several smaller.

5. Peel one sweet potato.

Butternut Squash Soup Recipes

• Heat up a generous spoonful of butter in a large pot, and drop in the onions. Simmer on low heat, stirring frequently.
  Butter? Raised cholesterol? OLIVE GARDEN NUTRITION ...
  
  
• Meanwhile peel and slice the veges. Chuck them in with the onions as they are done, stirring.

• If you're a vegetarian, just pour in a few cups of boiling water, and simmer for about half an hour, until very tender. Or, strain in the chicken bone bouilon you've just made.

• Liquidise with a blender! We like it quite thick, so don't add too much water.

• Hey preston, your recipe for butternut squash soup is done. Eat! Some people like to add various other herbs and spices, or coconut milk. The butternut has a gentle flavour, and I prefer it plain. A dolop of cream is nice, if you cholesterol is in order. Then take an after-dinner walk because exercise and cholesterol are strongly correlated. Inversely!

From Recipe for Butternut Squash Soup to EXERCISE and CHOLESTEROL ...

Omega-3 fatty acids

But just as important, perhaps more important because I want to see my grandchildren growing up. I've got a lot to teach them about beekeeping, gliding, carpentry, gardening ...

And Omega-3 is part of the reason why I have every hope that that is going to happen. You see, if you don't like fish, then you can still get your Omega-3 from Butternut. Butternut contains 38mg of PUFA's, those are the fats that include Omega-3, not rich like in our Mackerel Recipes, but still good.

What's so special about Omega-3? They are a group of 'essential' unsaturated fatty acids that your body cannot manufacture. You have to consume them if you want to be healthy. Amongst other things they have been proved to lower the bad cholesterol, LDL and VLDL, whilst raising the good cholesterol HDL. Clean blood vessels, more blood to the brain, the organs, to the heart itself, the back ... healthier people. Walnuts are good too.

Plus butternut is high in anti-oxidants like the carotenes (less cancer), fibre (a happy colon) ... and you have to eat one heck of a lot to get fat! Pig out! So you see Growing Butternut Squash does have certain benefits...

FISH OIL HEALTH BENEFITS ...

MACKEREL RECIPES ...

LACTATING MOTHERS

ALZHEIMERS