Another first for this year was butternut squash and cobnuts. Cobnuts are pretty similar to butternuts only smaller and more round, they have the advantage of being better suited to England's climate.
Both grew really well, in fact better than expected. I only put in a couple of each type in so I wasn't prepared for them to take over half the allotment. Each plant took around ten foot square and that was with me chopping off the odd limb here and there. It goes against rational thought hacking away at the plants but next year I'll be more brutal. The plant can then concentrate on growing the fruits it has already made rather than making loads of little ones. Either way the crop was impressive and for an allotment idiot like me the plants were really easy to grow.
Planting
I planted the two seeds per peat pot around about April time and planted them out once I'd removed the early potatoes. While they were small I grew some peas in between. Later on they took over masses of space and did a great job at keeping the weeds at bay.
I'm not sure I'd bother with peat pots again, the idea is that the plant roots easily break through the pot so you can just stick the pot straight in the ground and avoid disturbing the roots. Next year I'm going to plant direct in the ground and use the bottom of a 5 litre water bottle as a mini green house.
Cooking
A simple recipe is to roast them. Cut the squash in two and scoop out the seeds. Then put some crushed fennel and cumin seeds on the top. Drizzle with oil and put in the oven (180 C) for thirty forty minutes. Lovely and massively filling.
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