Harvesting "Crown Prince" squashes

Latest post from MARKSVEGPLOT – a blog about food and gardening in England”

Today I deemed it the right moment to harvest my crop of “Crown Prince” squashes. Their parent plants were dying down and there was no chance of the fruits growing any more. It was definitely time to cut them and leave them to cure in the sunshine before we progress to cold wet weather.

As you can see, I got a total of five fruits from my two plants. Not a huge crop, but considering the less than ideal site they had, I’m well pleased with this result.

The biggest of the five weighs 3.35kgs, the second biggest 3.28kgs and all five together come to 13.5kgs. This should keep the two of us supplied with soup material for several months!

You will notice that I have cut the squashes with a fair bit of stem, in the approved “T-shape” manner. Cutting with too little stem attached can lead to rotting of the fruit before it is cured.

The weather here at present is glorious – bright blue skies, sunshine and daytime temperatures in the low 20s – so the squashes should cure very nicely in my big coldframe, with the doors open.

At night-time the temperatures this week have dipped into single figures, so I’ll try to remember to close the doors before dark!

Right, now to refresh my memory on recipes using squash…

To read more articles like this, on Gardening and Gastronomy, please visit * http://marksvegplot.blogspot.com/ *