Squash & Courgettes – Diary of a Rocket Gardener

‘Honeybear’ has done well both seasons when I have grown it, producing four or five fruits from each plant. The plants themselves are small and compact, and although I grow them in raised beds, I would imagine they are very well suited to pots and smaller gardens. The squashes are a lovely size, perfect for one to two people, and they seem to ripen quite quickly which means that they store well. They’re easy to peel which is a big plus point. I do find the flesh a little too sweet, but that’s a small price to pay for an easy cropping winter squash.

‘Uchiki Kuri’ is one that I absolutely love – for me it is the perfect nutty flavour – not too sweet and not too starchy. It ripens early on, and that makes it excellent for storing. I find the fruits can be quite varied in size, but a single squash would easily feed six to eight people. I love them for hanging onto until Christmas time when I’m cooking for more people and can use the leftovers to make nut roasts and stuffings. They can be quite hard work to peel, but I get around that by chopping into wedges, roasting, and then peeling off the skin afterwards. I usually get one or two fruits per plants, occasionally three. They do sprawl, so you need a bit of space or a trellis for them to climb.

‘Sweet Dumpling’ is so cute. I love growing them. It’s another sprawling variety, so will take up a bit of space, but, if you have a trellis or fence, it’s the perfect little climber. One year, I harvested a good thirty or forty from the three plants I had. This year, weirdly, just one fruit. I’m not quite sure what happened and why they didn’t thrive. Perhaps they just needed to get going a little earlier on in the year. Again, I find the flesh a bit sweet, but it is so useful to have these little squashes to hand. The shape is a bit bobbly so a little awkward for peeling, but the skin is not tough or chewy so it doesn’t matter if you end up cooking a few chunks with some skin.

‘Butternut Waltham’ needs to be planted earlier on in the year I think. Mine hasn’t ripened yet and is the final remaining squash in the veg patch (I’m hoping for a late surge of sunshine to help it through.) I imagine it would do really well in those parts of the country that are less prone to overcast grey days during the summer (although we didn’t have so many of them this year, we normally have plenty!) and I suspect it would like plenty of warmth from the very start of its growing journey. I’m thinking I might try it in the greenhouse next year to see how it does.

‘Cornells Bush Delicata’ – this is the one I choose as an all rounder. It invariably crops well, giving me four or five fruits from each plant. It stores well, and the fruits are about the same size as a medium butternut. They’re not too sweet, and for me are the best for cooking up a quick risotto or pasta dish as they’re easy to peel and prepare. They don’t take up too much space either.

This was my first year growing Courgette Genovese, and I have to say that I am a total convert. They just grew so well and were so easy-going. The other courgette plants seemed to struggle with the drought, but these guys just cracked on and got on with things. I’ve harvested loads from the three plants I’ve had, and the last decent sized courgettes were picked just one week ago. Really pleased with them, and I love their light coloured skin.

I love the yellow skin on these courgettes, and I grow them every year. they’re never quite as prolific as the green courgettes, and my sense is that they need more water for some reason, and are more prone to blossom end rot. Still, when I am well behaved and keep them well-watered, they produce a good crop and I enjoy the flavour in the kitchen. Strangely, they seem a little less watery in texture than the green courgettes, so I wonder if perhaps their roots don’t go so deep and that’s why they need more frequent watering and have firmer texture. But that’s just me hypothesising.

I love this one, simply because they are round, and I enjoy cooking with them. They’re easy to grill on a BBQ because I can slice them into big rounds (as opposed to slicing lengthways down a ‘normal’ courgette) – I also love them for stuffing – you can cut the tops off, scoop out the soft flesh and roast them stuffed with leftover risotto or something. Yum. They didn’t do brilliantly this year, but I put that down to drought as they have been big croppers in previous years.

Last but not least, it’s the green bush courgette, which is something of a classic. I think I might choose Genovese over this next year, but probably just because it’s a novelty to have the paler skin. This variety has always cropped very well, and seems not to suffer too much from blossom end rot. I think it takes up a little less space than Genovese as well, although it is marginal, but that could be a deciding factor if you’re growing in pots!