Plant · P-205

Winter Squash

Cucurbita maxima

Winter squash is the strongest animal-feed plant and the only true ground cover among the vine crops in this group, provided it is given a compost mound rather than planted straight into heavy clay. Its fruit keeps for up to nine months in storage, so a spring planting becomes a January feed and a winter staple long after the vine itself is gone, tasting something like baked sweet potato. Left to sprawl across ten to sixteen feet of ground, its broad leaves shade out weeds and hold soil moisture the way a living mulch does, which is exactly the role it plays in a traditional three-sisters planting alongside corn and beans. Timing is unusually strict: a squash vine borer makes autumn planting a losing proposition here, so it is a once-a-year, spring-only crop rather than the two-season habit of some of its relatives.