Musque pumpkin "Butternut Liscia"

One of the world’s best butternut squashes, with a wonderful nutty taste—sweet, with dense, buttery orange flesh—and the ability to keep all winter right on the corridor floor. Butternuts appeared in Europe relatively recently, and even in the UK they are still seen as a novelty, unlike in Argentina, where these fruits are exported worldwide. Butternut plants grow vigorous and long-vining. The number of fruits weighing 500 g to 1 kg can be impressive—up to 30 small squashes per plant. However, fruits must be harvested on time, because as seeds mature inside them, the growth of the remaining fruits slows down.
Underripe squashes with a greenish tint will finish ripening while lying on the floor and will develop their characteristic beige color. Do not pick “one-day-old” fruits at the milky stage for ripening—those will not ripen properly.
Of course, in our conditions these squashes should be grown via seedlings. Sow the seeds into containers in the first ten days of May. Until emergence, provide warmth: keep pots in a greenhouse warmed by the sun, or under a lamp, or near a radiator (in cold soil, seeds may spoil from the inside). Soaking the seeds is not necessary at all. Transplant seedlings into the ground only when the risk of frost is completely over. Some growers confuse butternut with zucchini because of its modest size, but on the cut it looks nothing like zucchini.
Butternut has a thick, straight “neck” and a “bulb” at the end, and inside that “bulb” there is a small cavity with seeds. The rest of the fruit is filled with tender orange flesh. By the way, thanks to its orange color, butternut is a rich source of antioxidants.
It’s easy to guess there are countless recipes using this squash: vegetable, meat, grain and pasta dishes, soups, purées, sauces. It’s widely used for stuffing. Tender fruits are made into puddings, cakes, pastries and candied treats. And of course, it can be fried or simply boiled.
A clear advantage of growing this type is that it does not cross-pollinate with the large-fruited and hard-rind pumpkins common here, including zucchini and pattypan squash. So, when saving your own seeds from butternut, beware of cross-pollination only with other muscat types (which, by the way, are not very numerous here).