Lauren Jennings shares her joy of autumnal squashes and warns of a national pumpkin shortage this Halloween due to the summer drought.

Friday 23 September was the Autumn Equinox, marking the official end of summer and welcoming in our lovely autumn season. It’s time to wind down a little bit and embrace warming soups… squash and sage is my fave!

We planted out nine different varieties of squash including; Georgia candy roaster, evergold, uchi kuri, blue Hungarian, Queensland blue, autumn glory, zombie, walthem butternut and honey boat. But some were unfortunately nibbled by some squirrels, but I guess they do need to stock up on some energy also before the winter months come along.

We have just harvested Ornamental Gourds and edible squash in the Kitchen Garden. One which did particularly well this year for us was the ‘Georgia Candy Roaster’.

These enormous squashes originated in the Appalachian Mountains in the USA and are known to be a banana-type squash. They grow very large, many of ours are around 75cm long with smooth pale orange skin with a little bit of green.

They are very sweet in taste and I have found many recipes online talking about making them into pies, which I will have to try myself. Otherwise, they are very good just roasted in slices in the oven with a drizzle of oil. Just writing this makes me want one for dinner!

September is also National Organic Month, an important campaign which aims to spread awareness of ways to garden without using nasty chemicals which can kill off a lot of biodiversity, soil life and damage our gut health.

Here in the Chiswick gardens, we always use organic principles and it will stay that way all year round. Our squash have been grown organically and have been fed seaweed which is rich in potassium to promote better fruiting. We also apply a 10cm layer of our green waste as a mulch. This feeds the soil life and our hungry plants, and also helps with transpiration of water from the soil and can help suppress weeds.

Many squash plants around the UK have not done very well this year due to the drought conditions. I read an article saying one third of Halloween pumpkins have failed and there will be a shortage this October. Pumpkins and squashes are very thirsty plants. So mulch, mulch, mulch if you can.

Come on down to our produce cart and treat yourself to an organic Chiswick-grown pumpkin or squash. We’re outside the Shop on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays 11am-1pm.