“Hey, man, where are my squash blossoms?” There was desperation in the voice on the other end of the line. But Drew always sounds desperate, even on good days. He can’t help it – he’s a chef. They have classes for this sort of thing in culinary school, but that’s another story.

It’s the end of June and squash blossoms have been tentatively available for two weeks. Drew can’t understand why the supply has suddenly evaporated just when the temperatures in Washington, D.C., have reached unbearable proportions and he’s changed the menu based on my assurance that these delicate flowers would be available for the rest of the summer. 120 miles to the northwest the mountains in central Pennsylvania are keeping the nights cool. Negotiating weather trends is the toughest part of selling to a chef.

As with many uniquely American crops, squash blossoms were quickly appropriated by Europeans and so we tend to associate their use with Italian or Spanish cuisine. But these fragrant blossoms have found newer audiences in recent years and it’s not uncommon to find them on a variety of menus, including those purporting to be purely American.

The uses of squash blossoms are also expanding beyond the traditional batter-fried presentation that many people might remember from their Italian grandmothers. Drew is using his as the main flavoring ingredient in goat cheese ravioli; or conversely stuffing them with herbal goat cheese. It all depends on his mood that day. Introducing them to a chef who is unfamiliar with them might be a challenge both because of their shelf life and their cost, but once they find a use for them you usually have a customer for life.

Cost is always the biggest obstacle to selling specialty items like squash blossoms, even when supply is plentiful. A box of 100 hundred can command as much as $35 in the early summer and go as low as $20 in mid July. But most chefs would be struck speechless, fall down on their knees and kiss a farmer’s boots if they knew what it takes to get a box to their back door. (Drew, of course, is too dignified for that sort of thing and would simply mumble, “Wow. Cool. So where are my squash blossoms?”)

The fragility of this crop poses special challenges to harvesting and storage calling for extreme measures even by a farmer’s standards. The expert grower will pick the male blossom between 1:00 and 2:00 in the morning – thus eliminating 90% of us who demand at least eight hours of sleep in a night. In midsummer, squash blossoms develop so quickly that a bud that is too small to harvest in the evening is open and mature by 6:00 the next morning, an invitation to cucumber beetles, bees, and whatever other insect that is attracted to the sweet smell of pollen. This does not preclude picking at other times of the day (or night), especially if the patch is healthy and vigorous. Evening or early morning harvest is possible but less likely to yield the closed bud that will survive the ravages of cucumber beetles or shipping to market.

Variety selection
Choosing the correct variety of squash is no less important than the harvest time. The earliest yields will come from zucchini varieties. Johnny’s Selected Seeds recommends the gray-green zucchini Costata Romanesco for its prolific production of male blossom buds. Winter squashes serve the midseason demands for yield and quality, but not all winter squash have the same qualities. Neck pumpkins and butternut squash yield large, sturdy flowers, but varieties like red kuri and buttercup have an exceptional aroma that a chef might prefer. As with all crops, finding the right variety is often a matter of what does best under specific growing conditions. Average yields per acre or plant are difficult to determine because of squash’s innate sensitivity to environmental changes. A few cool nights or an extended dry spell can dramatically reduce production in a very short period of time.

Postharvest handling poses the greatest challenge after setting your alarm clock to some ungodly hour in the morning. Excess moisture will cause squash blossoms to break down quickly, so they should be laid out on paper towels to absorb residual dew before packing. It’s possible to pack directly into unvented clamshells or plastic bags but condensation is inevitable and will reduce shelf life. A standard method of wholesale packaging is to lay them in a single layer in a vented plastic bag lined with a paper towel. Two of these bags can be safely stacked in a pea box or similar shallow container. 35ËšF is the optimal storage temperature; but condensation will again become a problem if delivery conditions become too hot. There’s nothing worse than showing up at the kitchen door with a box of something that used to be squash blossoms but now resembles an abstract expressionist’s conception of the sun rising over a patch of diseased cucumbers – except maybe the wrath of the chef when he has to rewrite the lunch menu.

Tony Ricci owns and operates Green Heron Farm in central Pennsylvania with his wife Becky Smith. They are members of Tuscarora Organic Growers Co-op where Tony also serves as the sales manager.