I cut my winter squash flush with the fruit just to make the pile look tidy: by December, what was spreading under the stalk wasn’t damp
That neat, flush-cut squash stem you admired in September becomes an open wound by December. Gardeners who trim stems too short sacrifice months of storage life, inviting rot, mold, and bacterial decay that spreads across entire shelves. The fix is simple—but only if you know the rules before you harvest.