Dale, I would hold up if I were You. Neither of those squash are anywhere near mature. Both are winter squash, which means they are best when fully mature and cured a couple of weeks before eating. As stated above, if you are in a great hurry, you can pick when the skin is hard enought to resist a fingernail. The basic way for both these squash is t o split in half, removed the seeds, put butter or other seasonings in the seed cavity and bake in the oven. Of course they can also be used in any other way you use a winter squash, pies, purees, soups etc. Here is a link that might be useful: some winter squash recipes

Hubbard squash is a winter type too and good for pies, etc., and can be easily frozen. They are also great for using in squash/pumpkin recipes. Several years ago, I had quite a few - they are huge. I split them apart, then placed the pieces in a shallow pan of water flesh side down, and baked them in the oven. When soft, I scraped out the fleshy part and froze in pint and quart size containers. It freezes very well when prepared that way. If it is very watery, it can be cooked down somewhat, but I just adjusted the liquid in most recipes to account for it otherwise. I hope my present planting will give a good yield this year as my freezer cache is all gone. They are just beginning to grow and the vines will take a lot of space, but we will find a way. Bejay

The whole squash family is a mess and includes winter squash (which includes what we often refer to as pumpkins), pumpkins (which includes what we refer to as summer squash) and gourds, which we really aren't discussing....but they belong to the family too. To keep them straight, remember that pumpkins are something we carve, squash is something we cook and gourds are something we look at. That's an oversimplification, but it does help you keep them straight from one another. Pumpkins, as we generally know them in this country, are Cucurbita pepo. They are mostly round, though sometimes oblong, mostly orange, and are most famous for being carved into jack-o-lanterns at Halloween. C. pepo "pumpkins" (if allowed to mature) have stems that are hard and deeply furrowed. Also included in the C. pepo family are these "summer squash": yellow crookneck and straighneck squash, zucchini, vegetable marrow, pattypan squash, and scallop. Most of the processed, canned pumpkin sold in this country labeled as "pumpkin" is from the C. moschata family. Perhaps not so coincidentally, this is the type of squash most resistat to squash vine borers, and most of my favorite "pumpkins" fall into this group. Most moschatas tend to be more oblong than round, and some of them can get pretty long. Often their skin will mature to a tan or buff color, though not always. The stems are ridged and enlarge right at the point where the squash meets the stem. Some of the common moschatas are the cheese pumpkins, cushaws and butternuts, as well as the Seminole pumpkin. Seminole is my favorite winter squash to grow because it won't die and you can't kill it. The C. maxima species produces pumpkin-like squash, but they have stems that are softer, almost spongy, are not ridged and do not enlarge where the stem attaches to the squash. Their skin tends to mature more to a yellowish shade than to a bright, true orange. This group does include Atlantic Giant and Big Max and the first time I grew them, I waited forever for them to turn a deep, dark orange--and they don't. They're a medium yellowish-orange. So, the next time you buy or harvest a summer squash, what you have really is a pumpkin. The next time you buy canned pumpkin, you're actually buying winter squash. When you buy a big orange pumpkin to carve, its' flesh is tough and stringy and not worth cooking. It doesn't make a very good pumpkin pie either. I hope this makes everything as clear as mud. When y'all have recovered from all this confusion, we can discuss cantaloupes and muskmelons. The tannish-skinned, netted melons sold in this country as cantaloupes are not cantaloupes at all. They are muskmelons. That's a story for another day.

I ate my first spaghetti squash last week. I'm going to try to grow some next year. I saw seeds for single serving size squash at Park Seed, and since there are only 2 of us, that sounds like a good idea, since the bowl I tried reheating was not great. We sliced it in half, scooped the seeds put garlic & butter in it and popped it in the oven. Next time, I won't put the butter on before cooking. It seemed to make it mushy. Other than that, I really liked it. Next time, we'll cook it plain, add garlic, butter and parmesan cheese, then pop it back in the oven for a minute to melt the parm. I cooked the seeds too, like pumpkin seeds, but I cooked them in the frying pan instead of the oven, just to try it. They were good too. I planted my zucchini too close this year (to each other, and to everything else). Next year, it's not going in the raised bed. It's getting some space of it's own. Of course like a dope, I thought it was a vining plant. I've only grown it once, and that was several years ago. I just though - zucchini is squash, squash grows on vines... Lesson learned... We did get some very good zuchs though. About one a day for several weeks. My potatoes were looking great until I left town for a couple weeks. DH overwatered them. They got hit when the sprinkler system came on, and he didn't realize it. As they yellowed, he watered them more, thinking they were dry. I salvaged a few that hadn't rotted. My carrots were less than stellar. I grew Danvers half long I think. They weren't sweet at all. All in all though, the new raised beds I built this spring produced by far the best garden we have ever had. DH didn't want me to garden this year (first year in the house, too much work he thought, so I built it while he was gone to TX for 2 weeks). I had 80 square feet this year. Next year I'll have about 200, plus a raspberry patch. DH is happily helping me this time : )