The Curious Case of the Butternut Pumpkins

Back in Spring, in that time of frantic seed sowing when the weather was distinctly warmer than it is now, I sowed some courgettes, some pumpkins and some butternut squash. I have never grown butternut squash before so I was looking forward to see how they would get on. I planted them all in a new plot that I had created next to my main vegetable plot. The courgettes in particular were hampered by being scratched up by the chickens, but with a little protection the plants seemed to thrive.

However, after a while I realised that planting them all together was a mistake as the plants grew through each and I couldn’t actually remember which was which. After a while though the various squash began to grow and I looked forward to harvesting them in the Autumn.

When Summer slowly drew to a close, I was a little perturbed that my squash did not really look much like pumpkins. Nor did they look much like butternut squash. Nevertheless, I just convinced myself that as they ripened they would look more like how they were supposed to. However, when I came to harvesting them last week I found that they had become these curious beasts:

These are clearly neither pumpkins or butternut squash. I checked the seed packets again and I had definitely sown what I thought I had so that wasn’t the problem. After a couple of days pondering what had happened. Suddenly, it dawned on me that they had cross-pollinated!! It seems that I have inadvertently created a new type of squash. I have christened it a “butternut pumpkin”. I used one of them last night in soup – I used a standard pumpkin soup recipe and it tastes pretty similar except with a slightly milder taste. I’m not sure what I will do with the rest – after all, in the recipe books do I look under “pumpkin” or “butternut squash”!?

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