BUTTERNUTS NOW ?

[Wellie]

Just a thought, with you saying you were going to try a few on your compost heap(s) next year, I've heard that works really well too, but my growing suggestion is: pick the most 'rampant' varieties perhaps for there, and see if you could train them up from there to grow ALONG THE TOP of the kitchen garden wall somehow ? It would look spectacliar for when you have the garden open to Jo Public, and they'd 'cure' incredibly well up there, wouldn't need supporting, or indeed a slate underneath as you would trailing the fruit at soil level....

First, rid the Kitchen Garden of any slugs'n'snails WITHOUT vertigo....!

[peter]

I tried one of the naked seed varieties last year.

Very dissappointing, enormous squash, very thin flesh, loads of seeds, which I just plain could not get dried properly. In a low oven they kind of melted into each other and stuck very firmly to the tray. In the airing cupboard they went mouldy.

The few I salvaged from the oven had a strange flavour.

I suspect that they were not fully ripe and I think they were RO.

[cevenol jardin]

Thanks Wellie
RETZER OLKURBIS (Lady Godiva)sounds like what i am after. I've asked Tuckers for a catalogue. Meantime thanks for the warning Peter, sounds disappointing, will look into how best to dry the seeds. Maybe they have to mature on the vine like gourds?