A years supply of Squash and Courgette

A years supply of squash and courgette

Planning space for them to grow

Next vegetable is one that I find easy to grow and that is squash, and another I have had some success with courgette. Last year I grew a lot of squash of different varieties, shapes and sizes with great success. The courgette I didn't get the harvest I was expecting due to slugs and weather.

As a family we don't eat very much squash or courgettes but this will be changing in a bid to produce all the fruit and vegetables that we need from the allotment. I have discovered that I can put the squash (especially butternut squash) into curries and bolognese to had a healthy option without anybody knowing its actually in there, sneaky I know but until they are used to eating it I will continue to do this. This year I will be making more things with the squash and courgette like soups, flans, pies and trying to find some chutney recipes too.

So how many will I need to feed a family of 6 for a year? This year I will be aiming to use 1 large or 2 small squash a week and 1 courgette, I want to try and grow at least 20 butternut squash as these actually will do 2 meals. For this I will need to grow 6 Butternut squash plants, 7 courgette plants and  about 6 courgette plants. How much space will this take up on the allotment? The spacing between each plant needs to be 1meter which seems a lot of space but I realised last year just how big the plants grow.  I have 3 beds which are 1.5 meters x 70cm, theses will be ok to grow 6 butternut squash plants in. Then I will require 3 of the beds that measure 2 meters by 1 meter, each bed will contain 4 plants in them.  The total number of beds required is 6 which seems a lot but I can grow some quick growing crops in spaces while the plants mature, last year I grew Chenzo chillies in-between the squash plants and they grew alongside each other the whole summer.