Pumpkins and Winter Squash

As you may have already sussed I'm a bit of a cucurbit growing addict!


Last year, it was my first summer in Birmingham and I planted out my summer squash and winter squash to very disappointing results.  I didn't get one fruit off any - and my absolute favourite variety of pumpkin, which has fared well in previous typical british summers, almost grew a single reasonably sized fruit only to become slug fodder when its skin was still soft.  I was pretty devastated to say the least.  There were many heart sinking moments.

To be fair last summer was difficult for most of us growers with a few vacancies appearing on allotment waiting lists here in Birmingham as some people gave up.













Not to be dragged down by recent cucurbit failures, I tried to learn from them and hit the web in search for varieties of winter squash and pumpkins suitable for our iffy summers.

From http://www.realseeds.co.uk/wintersquash.html I selected the Boston Winter Squash and Hokkaido.  They are both from the Hubbard variety of pumpkins / winter squashes.  Hokkaido has grown really well for me this summer - it was rampant and quickly dominated the pumpkin patch.  It's leaves are finally starting to shrivel now in early October, but its grown some beauties and I know we had a cracking summer, but I planted my pumpkins late (organising my wedding distracted me somewhat) and they were only planted in early July.

I planted 6 plants in my staff allotment plot next to the Urban Veg site http://urbanvegwhg.wordpress.com/.  This is a real sun trap so when its hot, its really hot here.  The soil is fertile and I added a scoop of home made compost underneath each plant.  They were a roaring success here with a reasonable amount of crop (about 2 fruit per plant and at least 1kg) (1 x hokkaido, 2 x Boston Winter Squash, 1 x Heritage Seed Library Georgian Candy Roaster and 1 x Zapallito de Toscana http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/hsl/variety.php?IdNum=688.  I also planted some summer squash varieties on my patio in 5 litre sacks (a white patty pan, a summer crookneck (both from http://www.realseeds.co.uk/wintersquash.html) and Ram's Kodu (another HSL variety)) I am also growing a Hokkaido and a Zapallito de Toscana on the patio.  It is more practical to save seeds from my patio as on the staff allotment the bees from Urban Veg always get there before me.

The pumpkins on the allotment have done much better than the patio plants - that's not to say that the patio plants have done badly as they have all produced but they were a bit slower to produce with smaller fruit.

After this year's pumpkin experiments, next year I will grow a variety of each to save seeds on my patio garden and will grow just a single variety of each pumpkin and winter squash on the allotment.



There is no point to grow two plants of the same variety on the allotment plot as they were so prolific there.  I will also continue to research varieties which should do well in our cool, short summers.  Often varieties of all veg types that grow in the mountains of Japan seem to do very well here and I will be on the lookout for more.  I will also keep saving seed as I may be able to breed a good variety of pumpkin that has naturalised to my two sites within 3 years.  I will definitely be experimenting with the Hubbards as I was so impressed with how well they grew this summer.


I have yet to harvest my fruit, with the allotment pumpkins all sitting proudly on a bathroom tile so the hard skins can dry nicely.  It may be a little early to say and maybe a footnote will be needed once I've harvested, wintered and cooked a few varieties.

June Storms

Recently we've had some pretty changeable weather to deal with.  We've had a 10 day summer inbetween lots of unseasonally cool days, followed by lots of rain and then an intense windy storm.

I hope you all fared better than me with the storms!

Prior to our 10 days of summer, I had put fleece over all my germinating seeds to stop the birds from eating them before they got a chance to sprout.  And then the sun came.  With high temperatures averaging 26 degrees C.  The week before we'd had temps around 12 C.  I took the decision to keep them veiled with their fleece as I thought the sun might scorch them and I think I was the only person waiting for that heat wave to end to unveil my little beauties!

And it really did feel like unveiling my patch!  All of a sudden the areas I'd planted were fully populated with seedlings of salad, roots, onions, radishes (including baby rat tail radishes), leeks and the peas finally germinated.

On Jubilee weekend I decided its now June - I can start planting the tenders out.  Naturally I made some bunting with some ribbon, old scraps of blue/white/red cloth and my sewing machine so the whole weekend was not just dedicated to gardening but I did find myself (inbetween watching the Jubilee celebrations on TV) trying to make a start on planting the tenders out. 

I planted out 4 sunflowers, 12 french beans and 4 winter squash.  I didn't have quite enough time to plant out the tomatoes and the remaining winter squash and sunflowers.  I also left some flowers to plant out later.  They were all residing in my plastic greenhouse.

Then the rain came down, and it carried on coming down all week ending in a great big finale of a storm on Friday with very high winds.  I came home to find the greenhouse flat on the floor.  We were devastated!  We love tomatoes!!! 

I rescued all the seedlings one by one, my boyfriend helped me with the carnage.  It was hard work as I'd just come down with a cold and cancelled a weekend to London where I would have been helping my friends at Transition Town Wandsworth's Bramford Community Gardens with their Open Squares event. 

I moved them all the rescued seedlings into a shed, safe from the wind and naturally lost a few squash and some sunflowers - surprisingly all the tomatoes escaped unharmed.

Yesterday, I inspected the veg patch after the winds and all the supports were fine - naturally my boyfiend had done a sterling job with the plant supports a week earlier.  I only had one casualty on the plot - one of the winter squash had perished in the Friday storms.  Luckily I had germinated two of this italian pumpkin variety and this was one variety that had not perished in the greenhouse calamity.  So despite all the drama, I think the population of veg with all the heritage varieties amongst them had lucky escapes.

(I do realise in the grand scheme these are small problems in contrast to the people in Wales who had their homes completely flooded)

However, after all the doom, gloom and vegetable carnage, yesterday was a pleasantly sunny day with the elder flower in bloom and the blackberry bushes budding up with their flowers of promise.  So it was a day of planting - all the tomatoes are now in the new, slightly more secure home of the veg patch (that is providing we don't have another blight epidemic this year and with recent weather patterns this is highly likely!)

And today we are blessed with another sunny day - I really hope it follows true to the forecast today as they are predicting light showers in the evening.  If it remains I shall be planting out all the remaining seedlings currently in refuge in the shed and any seedlings that haven't made it will be laid to rest in my wormery to help those who made it with nutritious worm tea and worm cast!

I do hope the weather's going to start to be a little kinder to gardeners - it must be really challenging for those of us who are just starting out.

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!

My first Seedy Sunday!

This weekend I will be heading over to Brighton for my very first Seedy Sunday experience.

I have heard stories about people swapping suspect little packages in brown paper bags with scribbles written on the bag - sounds very intriguing!

I am also a complete fanatic about growing heritage, heirloom and saved seed and keeping old varieties alive - in fact keeping a massive gene pool of a variety of edibles alive.  Its exciting - there's lots out there we can grow.  Wouldn't it be fantastic to save a variety from complete extinction?  Well it floats my boat anyway!

So much so that I am a very keen member of Garden Organic's Heritage Seed Library

Last summer, I was saving seed for the first time and have a selection of chilli seeds, tomato seeds and gem squash to share.  I've bagged all my seeds ready for the big swap on Sunday.

Got any tips for a newbie to the Seedy Sunday experience?