Vegmonkey and the Mrs.

We planted two Uchiki Kuri plants, having had a massive failure at growing squash last year (the sunflowers in the same bed took over!) I completely love the plants for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they are not too spiky like those horribly defensive courgette plants, and secondly, they look so nice sat in the bed, trying to escape towards the tomato plants and the onions!

The first fruit we had was small, and very orangy, this second one is much more what we expected. Big, yellow, and very, very tasty. We had it in a veg curry last night, with the last of the courgettes which are actually marrows!

There are currently 4 fruits on the plant, with 4 or 5 very small buds growing. It’s meant to be a good keeper too, so if we do get a mad rush of fruits towards the end of the year, they will keep well for a while, maybe even until Christmas Dinner!

With all this rain we’ve been having the last couple of days, followed by the sun, stuff in the garden has gone nuts. It’s my fave gardening time of year as there is so much to go outside and have a look at after work!

I’ve planted a couple of the usual bog standard ‘Defender’ courgette plants, just ‘cos they are so easy to grow and give lots of reward for very little effort. The other two plants are a pumpkin kinda-thing called a ‘Gourd.’  I see a lot of inedible ones which can be used for decoration, but this is a variety called ‘Uchiki Kuri,‘ and is more like a Squash than anything else, and can be eaten.

I think the thing that attracted me to this was the nice bright orange skin, but also its apparent nutty flavour. The fruits also store well, not that we will have a huge amount from the 1.2 by 2.4 metre bed dedicated to these little beauties.

The plants went in late as the bed was being used for early potatoes and Japanese Onions. It didn’t matter in the end, as the courgettes have pretty much caught up with anything i could have put in earlier.  The Defender is above, while the Uchiki Kuri plant pics are below. I had to remove the flower yesterday and was worried that the first fruit of the season would rot, which would be good (mum!)…

I’m having to use canes to peg the plant inside the boundaries of the bed this year, so that it doesn’t disappear onto the slate or provide a ‘bridge’ for slugs and snails to cross the copper.  In the bed also are a load of lettuce variety plants to fill the space while other stuff is growing, and 4 sweetcorn plants which are tall and growing nicely.