GROWING squash is a promise you won’t see come to fruition until autumn.
It’s the joy of carving your own pumpkin at Halloween, stuffing marrows as it snows and realising you grew it!
I have grown squashes on the vegetable patch for ten years with varied degrees of success. I first grew Spaghetti Squash and though it was easy to grow I did not like the taste or the texture.
I moved onto other squashes including marrows and fell in love with a variety called Table Dainty, which is tasty and prolific.
We even came first in the Delph Show with it one year but since then I have struggled to find the seed for this marrow.
This year I have opted for Crown Prince pumpkin after failing with the Red Kuri squash last year. Red Kuri is bullet proof – but not in my garden!
So now I am taking no risks and have planted them in a sheltered part of the garden on top of weed membrane to stop anything eating them.
I have potted on the pumpkins into large pots. There is a simple way to do this:
(1) fill the new pot a third full and pop in the plant you want to pot on, pot and all!
(2) then fill the gap between the two pots with new compost,
(3) pull out the original pot leaving a pot sized shape hole,
(4) tip out the plant from its pot and it will easily fill the hole!
The Back Lane Veg Patch is a new garden under construction on the Saddleworth hills.
This column focuses on growing food and flowers for use in the kitchen and home. If you have any questions on growing you can contact Andrew on twitter @Backlanevegpat1
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