Cucurbits include cucumbers and their relatives - gherkins, courgettes, squash, pumpkin and melon. As such, they are a useful and exciting family to include in your garden and they can keep you very well fed. All of them originate from South America so like warm weather and will be killed by the frosts so the growing season is quite short. However, they grow fast and can yeild an astonishing harvest in that time.
When it comes to cucumbers there are two main types - smooth and ridged. This also equates to indoor and outdoor varieties. We are used to buying smooth ones in the supermarket but it is easier to grow ridged ones at home because they do not need to be grown in a greenhouse. Ridged cucumbers have black spikes on them when they grow but these easily brush off when you wash them and after that it is hard to tell the difference between them and the ones you buy. We usually grow varieties such as Burpless Tasty Green and Marketmore as both have proved to be very reliable over the years.
Another type of cucumber is the gherkin. These are usually short and stubby in shape compared to normal cucumbers, are more spiky and have a bitter flavour. We like to grow them so that we can make pickled gherkin slices. It is possible to pickle them whole too but you have to pick the gherkin when it is still small to do that and it is very easy to miss that moment. They grow very quickly and will go from being too small to too big in just a couple of days. If they get too big I turn them into gherkin relish so all is not lost.
Courgettes are another member of the cucurbit family and they have a reputation for being prolific croppers. People who grow courgettes often end up with more than they imagined or even know what to do with so be cautious about the number of plants you grow. Green courgettes are the conventional ones you find in the shops but we mostly grow yellow ones as we feel they have a nicer flavour and a slightly thinner skin. You can also grow round courgettes, which are fun and are ideal for roasting as stuffed courgettes.
Next we have the squash family. There are summer squash, which include things such as patti pan. They can grow in a variety of interesting shapes and colours but I find that they taste very similar to courgettes but are a lot more awkward to peel! Then there are the winter squashes, which include the classic butternut squash. These have a different flavour and texture to the summer squashes and they also store really well, allowing you to keep them through the winter, which is handy.
Pumpkins are in fact a type of winter squash but we all tend to view them as a separate type of vegetable. Regular followers of mine on social media know that I have a bee in my bonnet about the amount of food waste generated each Halloween by people carving pumpkins and then discarding them. I go out of my way to publish recipes and ideas for eating pumpkins because they are an amazingly versatile vegetable and, again, can be stored right through until the following spring with care. We like to grow a selection of different pumpkins from small ones to ones suitable for Halloween lanterns to the pale green Crown Prince type.
The final cucurbit family member worth a mention is the melon. These are definitely more successful if you have a greenhouse as they like warmth but there are a few varieties suitable for growing outside. Even so, they are tricky and unlikely to yield more than a novelty-sized fruit. If you can dedicate time and attention to them then give it ago but don't build up your expectations.
The main things to bear in mind with all members of the cucurbit family is how big the plants can grow and how prolifically they can crop. Cucumbers are naturally a trailing plant but can be trained up a cane or other support so can be kept fairly compact. However, courgette plants just grow outwards with large leaves so need a good two feet of growing space per plant. This is small in comparison to pumpkin plants which will romp away across the garden, sprawling out its dinner plate sized leaves with no regard for whatever else you may wish to grow. As such, they are not suitable for small spaces.
A single cucumber plant will probably yield 5 or 6 cucumbers over the summer so you may only need one or two plants to meet your needs. Courgette plants are the most prolific and will produce dozens of courgettes per plant. They grow very quickly too so it is important to check the plant often when it starts cropping because what looked like a promising baby courgette one day could have turned into a monster marrow the next time you look. Pumpkin plants tend to only produce 1 to 3 fruits, and it is worth limiting the number of fruit it grows to ensure that you have a few that reach a good size rather than a multitude of small, under developed fruit. All cucurbit plants will be killed by the autumn frosts so enjoy them whilst you can.
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