Well, I've been busy with other things lately and these pictures are a few weeks old now, but I'll show you them anyway.
This is some of our squash harvest, picked on the 19th September. Hopefully everyone will recognise the round orange one. The green ones are 'Burgess Buttercup', the yellow curly ones are 'Summer Crookneck' and the heart shaped ones are my favourite - and longwinded - 'Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato' squash. Since that day we've picked another one pumpkin and five Thelma Sanders!
Bit disappointed with the turnout, really - the Thelma Sanders were amazingly productive as always, but we usually get many more pumpkins and I'd hoped for more Burgess Buttercups, but most of them rotted on the vines. And the Butternut squashes are conspicuous by their absence... Good job we harvested when we did, too - we just beat a couple of very early frosts:
We laid our harvest out on the carpet by the back door where they'd get plenty of sun to finish ripening them and 'cure' the skins, and here we learnt a brand new lesson. Don't store squashes on the blossom end. With their blossom-ends to the floor and unable to dry out, both the Burgess Buttercup squashes quickly went mouldy. Doh!
The Summer Crookneck squashes haven't lasted long either - at least, the knobbly ones haven't. The smoother skinned ones are still hanging in there. Must make an effort to finish them soon... Although I'm afraid I find them rather uninspiring. The flesh inside is so thin they hardly seem worth it - I think we will make sure to eat them all at courgette-stage next year. How do you eat yours?
Now, check this baby out:
I have to report that no, we didn't grow this 64lb monster. It was donated to Sainsbury's by another local grower for a competition, and they were going to chuck it out afterwards! Needless to say, we couldn't allow that. So we have planned a 'Pumpkin Party', and we're going to see how many different things we can make from it. More on that in a week or two!
4 comments:
If you cut your squash with a handle. A piece of the vive still attached either side of the fruit stem. They are supposed to last better.
Seee the photo on my blog post here
I grew a pumpkin that size once, put t in the Harvest Festival, and the ladies didn't think it was big at all! The climate in the Caribbean is a lot better than ours for growing large squashes.
Your squash harvest is impressive. I see what you mean about the flesh on the crooknecks, I've never grown them, are they really worth it?
You really shouldn't wait until they are hard and seedy on the crooknecks. In the states they are only sold while their skins are smooth - so while they are small. I started picking mine this year while they were tiny and used them whole and raw for dip. Delicious.
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