Grow Squash in Compost Heaps
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By Barbara, February 23, 2011
Every year I grow squash in the rough just beyond my garden’s edge, in compost heaps created just for the squash. In our Compost Gardening Guide, Deb Martin and I call this method using Grow Heaps, and it’s the easiest way to grow long-vined varieties of summer and winter squash, year after year. No time is spent on soil prep, because you “plant” squash by burying seeds, rinds, and other squash remains in custom-designed compost heaps. When the weather gets warm enough, surviving seeds turn the compost heaps green with seedlings. Thinned to four plants per heap, you have the simplest way ever to grow squash.
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Creating a Grow Heap
After choosing a place to grow squash in a compost heap, I begin by piling together whatever is available, which is mostly garden waste and partially-rotted compost. When the pile is about half the size I want, I sprinkle on a pint of organic fertilizer. I also go out of my way to include soil as I pile materials together, because plant roots need that mineral content to be truly happy. These two details – organic fertilizer appropriate for the crop and soil -- distinguish the preparation of a grow heap from any other compost pile.
When I’m three-fourths done, I collect squash that are going bad in storage, and place them in their planned grow heap. After a few slices with the shovel, I pile on more organic material until the squash are covered. The squash are composted and replanted at the same time. For the rest of winter and into spring, each time we eat a butternut, the seeds go in the butternut pile. The same goes for the last remaining buttercups.
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Start in Fall, Winter or Spring
I start setting up grow heaps in the fall for summer squash, because even well-cured yellow crookneck “gourds” start rotting in early winter. As soon as I can get out in late winter, I set up grow heaps for the other types of squash I plan to grow from mature fruits stored in my basement. Right now I’m working with these disease-resistant, open-pollinated varieties: Waltham Butternut, Burgess Buttercup, and Delicata JS.
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Thin and Watch
By the time spring arrives, each grow heap is holding hundreds of seeds, which sprout when moisture and temperatures are right. I always have too many seedlings, which must be ruthlessly thinned to only four per heap. Early on I begin monitoring for squash bugs, but except for patrolling for them, squash grown in specially-prepared compost heaps pretty much take care of themselves. They like living this way.
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Naturalized Butternuts?
Many gardeners have told me of pumpkins and butternuts that naturalized along their garden fences. As a way to grow squash, I suppose grow heaps are a refinement of how exuberant squash grow when allowed to have their way. Compost heaps have probably been sprouting squash seedlings for thousands of years. Grow heaps simply give this natural process a thoughtful push.
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