Harvesting Squashes

On Saturday I harvested the Squashes at the allotment. In June I planted out 27 Squash plants, 9 each of Butternut, Festival and Sweet Dumpling. Since the plants had pretty much died off now and most of the fruits were looking ripe I decided it was time to pick them all for storage over the winter. I harvested 86 squashes in total. The wheelbarrow was full with just the Sweet Dumpling and Festival squashes (see above), before I even got to the Butternuts (see right). I gave away 4 squashes while I was at the allotment, and if you include the ones we'd already picked and eaten over the past few weeks (plus 5 or 6 I left on the plot to ripen) I think it must be nearly 100 squashes we've had from those 27 plants. That's an average of 3 or 4 squashes per plant. The Butternuts were the least productive, only about 25 or so of those (and some quite small) and the Sweet Dumpling (green stripes) were probably the most productive.


Since it had rained the night before I picked all the squashes they were quite wet and muddy - so I left them all to dry in the sun for a few hours on a table on the patio (see above). They looked fantastic sat in the sun like that. I then cleaned off the dried mud and stored them on wire-rack shelves in the garage, where I hope they will keep long into the new year.


Because most of the first crop of peas had finished, I pulled up 2 of the chicken-wire fences that had been supporting them, dug the ground over and covered it for the winter (see above). 1 fence remains with the later crop of peas that I planted. I was able to pick a small bag full of them while I was there. The late potatoes and cabbages are both growing really well (see below). You can barely see the gap between the 2 rows of potatoes now and the plants are covered in flowers.


Another job on Saturday was to empty the thing I call the 'play pen' on the new plot. When I took the plot over it was full of rubbish and weeds - so I finally got around to removing the rubbish and digging out the big pile of weeds and soil so that it is now empty (see below). I plan to remove one side of it, add hinges to make it a gate, then use it to store manure when I don't need it.


The French Beans and Sweetcorn have pretty much come to an end and died off (see below). One of my next jobs will be to pull the plants up and dig the ground over. The leeks (in the foreground of the pic below) could do with another weeding as well.


Although most crops are now slowing down or stopping, we're still picking a whole load of things. The Carrots (below left) are a really good size, straight and lots of them. Picked the first of only two Savoy cabbages (below right) the other day. A couple of French Beans and Runner Beans, Peas, Brocoli, White Cabbages, Red Cabbages, Courgettes (slowing down), Tomatoes (just starting to slow), Spinach, Spring Onions and Radishes.