RICHARD & PAUL
  • Home
  • Sunday Chat
  • A Week at the Plot
  • News, Recipes & Blog
    • Podcast
    • Photos >
      • Flowers & Plants
      • Landscapes
      • Travel
      • Growing Spaces
      • Architecture
      • Animals
      • People
      • Food
  • A Guernsey Gardener in 2025
  • Contact
    • Mailing List

News, Recipes & blog

Butternuts... A little like buses... (AGGIL 2)

3/10/2019

12 Comments

 
Picture
Butternuts, it appears, are a little like buses.  You wait ages for one to come along, and then three appear at the same time!
It hasn't been a great year for our squash, or at least not at the allotment.  There are a few Cheeky Prince growing amidst the toppled Gigantes and buckled rose arches; some of these squash royalty are green and some distinctly turning a bright orange.  However, on the whole squash on our allotment plots this year have been few and far between... literally!!
When I meandered down earlier to check on our plots and read the site water meter, I thought whilst I was there I would just pop over to where we are tending to a 2m by 1m patch on a fellow allotmenteers plot.  The two Achocha that Vivi gave us in early July are both about seven or eight foot high now, and covered in little fruits (note to self - make Vivi's Achocha & Chickpea Curry!!), and the sight of them did brighten my day.
​One of them did look a little off though...  Odd colour... Odd shape...  Had it not been pollinated correctly?  Had it been distorted somehow by rubbing against the willow pole structure?  Or was it in fact not an Achocha at all?!?!
So you can imagine the flush of warmth inside and the big smile that came to my face when I saw the little wee Butternut Waltham above.  Finally... FINALLY we had a butternut.  And then I spotted another!  And yet another!!!!!
 
So, after all that slightly pained forlornment of the past few months, we finally have three baby Butternut Walthams, though as Hamlet said, 'there's the rub'!  It is now the third of October, the nights are chilly, rain is always round the corner, sun shines brightly and then is quickly scurried away by storm clouds, and therefore the chances of any of these three beauties ripening to maturity is slim to none.
However, it is now true that we do have butternuts.  They may not lift to the heights, maturity and fruitfulness of Hugh & Mama and their plump family of last year, but they are Butternut Walthams none the less.  And that, in itself, is worth smiling about.  
A Guernsey Gardener in London, Day 2
12 Comments
    Picture

    We are...

    ...long term partners.
    We comment on our lives, and all the ups and downs that go with it.  We cover a wide variety of subjects, including allotment growing, recipes, comedy, vlogs and whatever else takes our fancy.
    Our aim is to provide good entertainment and some helpful knowledge.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    May 2021
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    March 2018

    Categories

    All
    A Guernsey Gardener In London
    Ailsa Craig
    Air Pollution
    Allotment
    Allotmenteers
    Allotment Life
    Aubergine
    Autumn
    Baking
    Berries
    Bhaji
    Bread
    Bricks
    Broad Bean
    Building
    Butternut
    Cabbage
    Calendula
    Cardboard
    Car Hire
    Carrot
    Cheese
    Chickpeas
    Christmas
    Christmas Pudding
    Community
    Community Gardens
    Compost
    Construction
    Cookery
    CSR
    Curry
    Emotion
    Family
    Flowers
    Food
    Food Waste
    Fortune
    Gardening
    Garlic
    Grand Uniin Canal
    Grand Union Canal
    Greek
    Green Tomatoes
    Growing
    Guernsey
    Guernsey Press
    Health
    Health And Welbeing
    Health & Wellbeing
    Home Cooking
    Horse Manure
    Insomnia
    Landscapes
    Lettuce
    Life
    Luck
    Luxury
    Memories
    Mental Health
    Moment Of Joy
    Mustrad
    No Dig
    Noise Pollution
    Onion
    Onions
    Parsnips
    Pasta
    Portuguese Cabbage
    Potatoes
    Pumpkin
    Pumpkin Seeds
    Recipe
    Robin
    Runner Beans
    Scent
    Seed Saving
    Seed Storage
    Senses
    Sharing
    Shed
    Sowing
    Spaghetti Squash
    Squash
    Strawberries
    Threshing
    Travel
    Trees
    Urban Greening
    Vegan
    Vegetarian
    Wales
    Wellbeing
    Winnowing
    Winter
    Winter Harvest
    Winter Preparation
    Winter Sowing
    Winter-storage

Picture
YouTube
Picture
Planet Vegetaria Group
Picture
Facebook
Picture
Instagram
Picture
Email
Picture
Podcast
Picture
Richard & Paul
  • Home
  • Sunday Chat
  • A Week at the Plot
  • News, Recipes & Blog
    • Podcast
    • Photos >
      • Flowers & Plants
      • Landscapes
      • Travel
      • Growing Spaces
      • Architecture
      • Animals
      • People
      • Food
  • A Guernsey Gardener in 2025
  • Contact
    • Mailing List