A butternut squash ripening in the Classical Roots Veggie Garden.

Americans have a powerful love of winter squash. It is strange, though not entirely surprising, that these humble plants should have come to dominate our horticultural imagination, since they come in so many varieties and invite so many flavors, applications, and associations. The Pumpkin Spice Latte has grown into a national symbol of autumnal anticipation, available earlier and earlier every year, so that bescarfed college freshmen can be seen dutifully sipping them in the streets when daytime temperatures are still in the eighties.

But our love for pumpkins is nothing new. Poems were written during the colonial period in the pumpkin’s praise because even before coffee took the New World by storm, paving the way for the lattes of the future, colonial Americans were already brewing their first alcoholic beverages out of them:

If Barley be wanting to make into Malt We must be contented and think it no Fault, For we can make liquor to sweeten our Lips Of Pumpkins and Parsnips and Walnut-Tree Chips.

Neither the poem nor the beverage sounds very nice (Walnut-Tree Chips!?), but that hasn’t stopped us from spending loads of time and money buying, preparing, and enjoying pumpkins during the harvest season, not to mention their many delicious cousins.

At the Classical Roots Program, we favor one cousin in particular: the butternut squash, partly because it takes up less space than pumpkins, but also because its flesh is even more delicious. Just two plants, which took up no more real estate than a cluster of parsley when we first put them in the ground this spring, have matured into a sprawling mass that refuses to stay in its bed and yields more squash than we know what to do with. Well, almost more than we know what to do with, because there really are so many things you can do with a butternut squash.

Simply roasting a cut-up butternut with some chopped onion and torn sage leaves is as easy as it is delicious: it’s the perfect side dish for a late-summer or early-autumn meal. But, if you swap out apples for onions on the roasting tray, and then blend the results with a little chicken stock, you have the basis for a superb soup. That soup can be given an exotic flair with the addition of red curry paste and coconut milk, or have its more traditional virtues underscored with a sprinkling of chopped chives and a dollop of yogurt or cream. Roasted chunks of butternut can be allowed to cool and tossed into a salad with red onion, toasted walnuts, kale, and a dijon-spiked dressing, where their caramelized sweetness will give the mixture depth.

Giving away butternut squash can sometimes result in very happy surprises! In this case, an Indian-style sauce that will go excellently on fluffy rice.

These are just a few of the reasons that it is worth trying to grow butternuts in your own garden. And, if you do, you’ll find that it’s an easy, hardy plant that will flourish as long as it’s given plenty of sun, water, and room. The vines can be trellised vertically if space is at a premium, or allowed to ramble freeform through the beds if you’re feeling generous. To maximize growing time, you’ll want to plant them as soon as the soil is warm in the spring. You’ll know the fruit is ready in autumn when the stem that feeds it has begun to harden off and the flesh cannot be pierced with your thumbnail.

As far as pests go, enemy number one in our part of the world is the Squash Vine Borer, a common clearwing moth whose larvae drill directly into the central vine of a squash, killing it almost overnight. The folk remedy is to spread ashes around the base of each plant. I’ve had some success with this tactic but the ashes need topping up after each rain, which can be a tiresome assignment on rainy years like this one. The other trick is to walk into the garden often and mercilessly execute any of the vine-borer moths you happen to see, though this will likely be more effective as emotional catharsis than as a preventative measure: if you’re seeing the moths, the larvae are probably already there. If you do lose your plants to them, the best response is to plant your squash as far away from that spot in the garden next year: the moths tend to return to the same place where they found good egg-laying sites the year before, so replanting in the same spot after losing your squash the year before only amounts to setting up a buffet.

Wherever and however you plant them, butternut squash will make a great return on minimal garden investments: humble but versatile, they’re a foretaste of the greatest flavors of the colder season. And you won’t even need to drive to Starbucks to enjoy them!