Squash Fantastic

Look at these monsters!  Zucca Lunga di Napoli (Franchi Seeds) - guessing they're going to make some massive winter squashes...

 These are slightly more polite in size but still eager to have more space for their roots - Zucca Berretina Piacentina (Franchi Seeds)

One of my HSL favourites from last year - Zapallito de Toscana (from saved seed so I hope they didn't cross polinate with anything else I was growing last summer)

And another superstar from last year's growing - Gem Squash.  Again, saved seed but I'm more confident that they will be true to type as I was more attentive with their pollination.  The fruit are absolutely gorgeous stuffed with goats cheese and slow roasted tomatoes and baked Stuffed Gem Squash Recipe

And look the Gem Squash loves me back! This one's baby leaves grew in a heart for me - how sweet :)

Spring Sunshine in the Community Garden

Gardening in Bramford Community Garden on Sunday was such a sheer pleasure this weekend.  It usually is a pleasure, catching up with  TTWandsworth garden friends, a good spot of weekly gardening on the plot working through our exciting action plan. 

But this weekend we were especially spoilt with the hazy spring sunshine that gave it that extra special nostalgic feeling a bit like playing outside when you were a child.

There were chats, Federico brought a good selection of heritage and unusual seeds so a spot of seed swapping (he has a really good selection of Cucurbits!) and we started our Biochar test bed.  There were preparations for the Big Dig event next Saturday and distribution of flyers.  Please come along and garden with us next Saturday from 11am ttwandsworth@hotmail.co.uk

It was so lovely sowing the seeds when this is an annual pleasure I am so far denying myself this year with my soon to happen move up to Birmingham in three weeks.  But I was able to get my fix in sowing some carrot, parsnip, spinach and beetroot seeds in the Biochar test raised bed and its mirror test bed without the Biochar.

I am definitely going to have to come back for a few visits to see the garden in a month or two just to see how things are coming along.  So many exciting things planned for this year... The results of the Biochar test, crop rotation plan, wild flower meadow, edible orchard and that doesn't include all the events and socialising... I think June would be a good month to pop down for a visit!

Zapallito de Toscana

I'm growing a fabulous squash in my garden.  It's called Zapallito de Toscana and I got hold of the seeds from Garden Organic's Heritage Seed Library.

They were easy to germinate.  Well, easier than the courgette seeds.

They were strong seedlings.  I could tell that they would be feisty growers!

I planted these two seedlings out into their final planters with a courgette plant.

They are the perfect squash for a small garden as they grow in a bush style rather than the squash that like to crawl all over your garden.  They just need a decent depth of soil (like the planter in the picture).  They also would grow very well in potato planters.  Anything which allows them a good depth for their root run.

They are hungry feeders with a good appetite for water too.  Give them water whenever its not raining and feed them once a week with the richest feed you have (I feed mine with worm tea from my wormery) and in return they will reward you with many squashes.

One of the major benefits of this squash is even if you have a glut, you don't need to eat them or cook them all up at once as you would courgettes.  As they grow bigger they form a hard skin which means they can be stored and eaten into Autumn.

Another benefit is, when harvested they will have grown their seeds to a large enough size to be able to save them.  Just be sure to pollinate the fruit yourself to ensure the seeds are actually a Zapallito de Toscana.  In order to do this, I check the flowers at breakfast time and have a look for any open female flowers.  Once I've found one I hunt for an open male flower from the same plant or exactly the same variety, in this case another Zapallito de Toscana.  I pick the male flower and remove all the petals.  I brush the stamen (the male sex part of the flower) over the stigma (the female sex part of the flower) and then leave the stamen inside the female flower.  I then use an elastic band to shut the female flower to ensure no pollinating insects can get into the flower.  Once the flower starts to die away I move the elastic band on to the base of the fruit so that I can identify a fruit that I have pollinated.

The benefit of pollinating a squash plant is that it will ensure that the seeds you save will produce the squash you want.  Squashes cross pollinate very easily and you will probably get a mix of all the squashes with open flowers on a given morning being grown in your street or allotment.  You can never be sure what you will get.  Although, the experimenter in me would like to grow one of these insect pollinated ones just to see what I would get!  





So there you have it... Zapallito de Toscana...

1.  Great for a small patio garden due to its bush growing habit
2.  Grows fruits that can be eaten straight away or stored for later use
3.  Easy to save seed from (once pollinated by a gardener)
 
Squash recipes:
Courgette Humus
Good Summer Roast

More squash inspired garden blogs:
Gem Squash, the intrepid explorer
Passion for growning cucurbits

Gem Squash - The Intrepid Explorer

This year, I am trying to grow gem squash for the first time.

I was inspired to try growing them by some South Africans that I got into conversation with about 2am one morning.  We got onto the conversation of my passion of growing veg - a conversation that seems to occur rather regularly!!  Then they told me about a squash that was very readily available in South Africa but very difficult to find in the UK and they loved the taste of it.  They got the laptop googled "gem squash" to show me pictures of the squash.  Their enthusiasm for this vegetable inspired me and I added it to my seed wish list for this season's planting.

So now I have this lovely cucurbit growing in my back garden.

Its quite a small cucurbit plant.  The leaves are relatively modest compared to its neighbours. It is a cucurbita pepo and shares the same latin name as the courgette which is also a cucurbita pepo.

The gem squash germinated really easily with all seeds germinating.  It did try to keep them at around 18-20 degrees centigrade during germination and the soil moist not wet as cucurbit seeds do have a tendency to rot very easily if kept too damp.

Out of the 6 that I germinated, I kept 2 and gave the other 4 away to the community gardens I support through my Master Gardener volunteer role. 

I did notice early on that they were developing into rather small squash plants but soon they were clambering all over the place, and started to crawl up my landlords shrubs.

I was very proud.  I love opportunistic veg!

But this morning I noticed something even better...  The most gutsy out of the two plants has started to climb the netting on the garden fence.  Fantastic!!

I am really hoping that eventually they will start to climb the sunflowers... but we will have to see

 

I am really looking forward to cooking with their fruit, but until that time, they are certainly going to keep me very entertained with their climbing habits!

Passion for growing cucurbits

Every year I fall in love with my cucurbits all over again.  I've been growing 

them every year for the past 7 years.

I was living in Brixton in a shared house when my next door neighbour gave me 

some spare courgette seedlings.  She had noticed that I was out in the garden at 

every opportunity and that I was starting to grow vegetables.  She told me she 

knew they were going to a good home!

At first I tried growing them in a large pot but their leaves started to look a 

little sad so I planted it in the flower border.  It grew these big luscious 

leaves and lots of courgettes and contributed to my very first home grown hangover 

recipe!

In my second year as a courgette grower I grew one fruit that was over half a metre 

long - I know, I know, that's not really a courgette anymore!  It looked very impressive 

but didn't really taste great!!
 

Last year I started experimenting with other cucurbits.  I tried a crook neck squash 

which I sourced from Real Seeds.  They had bigger leaves than the courgette and the 

bright yellow fruit looked amazing.  They also cooked very nicely too.  I fried them 

and roasted them with very tasty results.  I grew them in grow bags and neighbours 

did ask how they were growing in such a small amount of soil but they did.  I think 

I'm quite attentive with lots of watering and feeding which makes them look all the 

more lush!

This year I'm growing 7 cucurbits in the 2 containers in the picture above. I am often

asked how they can grow healthily in such small containers and so close to each other.

But they wouldn't show off their big velvety leaves if they weren't happy.  I keep them

well watered and well fed.  I have a wormery so they have been top dressed with 

vermicompost and get a regular feed of worm tea.  They seem quite happy on this diet! 

I've also heard of them being grown right on top of a compost heap as they are well 

known to be heavy feeders. 

Here's what I am growing this year:

1 courgette (this one's a heavy cropper so I shall surely be saving seed from this one), 

2 French heirloom pattypans, 

2 gem squash (inspired to try by my South African friends) 

and 2 squash Zapallito de Toscana from the Heritage Seed Library. 

All are cropping nicely, although the courgettes are slightly more in the lead.  All 

showing off their huge, luscious velvety big leaves.  And the gem squash have started 

to clamber over my landlords perennial shrubs - ever the opportunists!  How could 

you not love such a gutsy vegetable?

Last weekend, for my Master Gardener in service training, the theme was exotic 

vegetables and they were quite a few new cucurbits to find out about.  That sparked 

some future experimentation like trying shark fin melon, dudi and especialliy the

mouse melon looked very interesting to grow. 

But I fear that it is not a large garden or an allotment I need.... It's a very large field 

with lots of room for all the cucurbits I want to grow!!

Here's some recipe ideas for the squash glut:

Squash Flower Salad

Courgette Humus 

A Good Summer Roast