Kitchen Garden Forum

I've grown a really good crop of onion squash this year. The plants have started to die back quite quickly in the last couple of weeks and the skins of the squash are now hard. Is it too early to harvest them? I'm worried that if I leave them they will start to rot but if I harvest them now will they have much taste as it does seem a bit early.

If the leaves have died off then harvest and place somewhere dry, not too hot, but sunny and allow them to cure. This hardens the skin and raises the sugar levels.

Thank you Peter - I'm off up the lottie!

Also leave the stem attached, if you break the join with the fruit body it could be focus for rot to set in

Thank you, I've just brought back 21 beautiful looking squash!

Nice harvest Digitalis, lol you are growing in my garden, digitalis just about finnished flowering now ! A self sown turks turban is romping over my garden at the moment, still fresh and green with some huge squash on it, the courgettes are still green too - well green and gold, goldie has gold splashes in the leaves as well as gold fruit, still very productive, but the cucumbers are giving up now, having produced a very good crop for us.

Digitalis - this sounds a wonderful crop. If you allow the skins to cure and harden off in a dry place these should last you all through winter, and depending on their size, into Spring and early summer as well. If you've never grown them before, most winter squash are delicious baked/roasted, which seems to bring out the sweetness in them.

Thanks to the last 2 replies. The onion squash are now curing well. I also have a good crop of butternut squash, festival squash and some baby bear squash - these are supposed to have black skins but they have only gone a very dark green and as soon as I touched them they came away from the plant. Has anyone else had any success in growing these type of squash? Do the skins go black during the curing process?

Until the Parsnips have a good size and they have had a very hard frost on them I roast Butternut Squash as an alternative. I had some with roast beef yesterday and the combination of beef, BS and horseradish sauce with beans, peas and carrots home produced was a joy to eat.
JB.

I thought Baby Bear was an orange type?

Sorry - they are honey bear's not baby bears.