The original courgetti - no spiraliser required

This is a spaghetti squash. In a just world, the spaghetti squash should be having its 15 minutes of fame about now, as it is the original light, gluten-free alternative to pasta that needs no expensive spiralising equipment, just a 30-minute bake in the oven.

Instead, its brash skinny cousin, the courgette, steamed in and stole all the limelight, with its fancy gadgets and flashy green outer skin. Of course, courgettes are also readily available in the supermarket, and they fruit in huge numbers every summer, leaving gardeners wondering how to deal with them all. The spiraliser and its transformation into 'courgetti', long strands that can stand in for pasta without giving you a heavy carb or gluten overload, have turned courgettes into a must-have vegetable, leaving the much more naturally gifted spaghetti squash stranded in its wake.

A hefty 2kg spaghetti squash (such as the large yellow squash, lower right, above) can be baked in the oven, exactly as is, for 30 minutes, or until a knife slides easily into the flesh. Remove from the oven and slice in half lengthways, then spoon out the seeds. Now rake a fork over the cut surface of the squash. You'll find the flesh separates and falls quite naturally into spaghetti-like strands. Hence the name. One squash serves two easily, three at a push.

They have a mild nutty taste, not as 'green' as a courgette, and shouldn't be in any way watery. They go well with the conventional pasta sauces although I'm also quite happy to stir in some butter or olive oil, season with a little salt and lots of pepper, then dust with parmesan.

Grow spaghetti squash up a trellis, to save space and also to help keep the
ripening fruits undamaged from sitting on damp ground and away from slugs.

Spaghetti squash are one of the easier squash to grow. They germinate readily, sown indoors, two to a pot, sometime in April and then being transplanted outdoors in May or June, once it has a set of true leaves and looks like it's getting too big for its 9cm pot. Squash like rich moist soil, so it's worth digging manure into the squash bed before you transplant and then feeding the plants well once established. I like to train squash up a plastic mesh trellis or fence so that the fruit hang down but don't touch the ground: otherwise they will sprawl everywhere and take over your garden/allotment, and will be more vulnerable to slugs and snails. Apart from that, I confess, I leave them well alone.

I don't really know why spaghetti squash never make it into the shops. They're easy to grow, relatively prolific, good storers ... now that so many supermarkets find space for Crown Prince, onion squash and some of the more ornamental gourds, you'd think they could find a corner for the self-spiralising spaghetti squash.

If the squash does develop at ground level, slip a tile underneath so that it doesn't sit in the dirt.

A gallery of pumpkins

When it comes to growing pumpkins, I'm happy to leave the cultivation of giant specimens to others. I've grown a few up to spacehopper size in the past, but it never seems to be the tastier varieties which grow really big. Football sized is about right - the green Berrettinas on the bottom shelf here are just a little but larger than that, and bowling ball sized - the green Futsus in the middle - will do just fine as well. 

I've also never got round to growing them on the compost heap, as others swear by, and which can give you highly productive plants as I noticed on my recent visit to Great Dixter. I start my squash seeds in pots and once they have at least two true leaves, plant them out in a bed with lots of organic matter - including kitchen compost - dug in. Before planting, I cover the bed with sheet plastic, and cut holes in it to plant the seedlings through - this keeps the moisture in and the weeds down. I also give the plants a mesh trellis to scramble up, which has two advantages: it keeps the squash plants more or less to the bed you planted them in, rather than rambling all over the allotment, and it means most of the fruits grow off the ground and are less vulnerable to slugs, snails, and rotting where the thin skin is laid on damp grass or soil.

In most years, the foliage starts to die off towards the end of September, and by mid-October, the fruits are laid bare across the bed - sometimes attached to the main plant by a mere thread. The squash will be ready to pick and bring inside then (squash ready for picking will also sound distinctly hollow when tapped). This year, with such a warm autumn, the plants stayed lush and green right through to the middle of October and I lifted them last week when our first frost threatened (frost will turn the pumpkins to mush).

Once safely indoors, they can be stored somewhere bright and warm - by the kitchen window, in my case - to be 'cured'. In warmer climates with longer growing seasons, pumpkins can be cured out in the field, but it's getting a bit chilly for that here in England now. Curing hardens the skins (which helps them to store for longer) and develops the flavour. You should really store the pumpkins for 10-14 days in the warm and then remove the fruits somewhere cooler, ideally at a steady 12 degrees Celsius or so, for storage, but mine stay happily in the kitchen window throughout the winter months. Those still uneaten after Christmas will store right through into the next spring.

Incidentally, I've never been quite sure which types of squash can call themselves pumpkins. Although we traditionally think of pumpkins as orange Hallowe'en lanterns, I would also call the Berrettina Piacentina and Marina di Chioggia here pumpkins, as well as other green varieties like Crown Prince. I've seen it suggested that one thing that distinguishes a pumpkin as a particular type of squash is that its seeds are edible.

Suppliers

Berrettina Piacentina: Franchi Seeds of Italy

Butternut squash: Organic Gardening Catalogue, Kings Seeds, Nicky's Nursery

Futsu: The Organic Gardening Catalogue

Marina di Chioggia: Franchi Seeds of Italy, Organic Gardening Catalogue, Kings Seeds

Quintale: Franchi Seeds of Italy

Spaghetti squash: Franchi Seeds of Italy, Nicky's Nursery, Victoriana Nursery

A squash and a squeeze

I’ve gone mad with the squash and pumpkins again. Every year, I get tempted by new varieties and end up trying to grow around 20 squash plants in a  bed  whose dimensions are better suited to a dozen plants at most. I have my regulars: the green-skinned organge fleshed Berrettina Piacentina and Marina di Chioggia, both of which have dense flesh and a taste definitely reminiscent of sweet potato. They make wonderfully silky mash, roast to a lovely brown savouriness, and keep their shape well  when baked. They don't exude water either. Completely differently textured are the spaghetti squash, which can be baked then forked into strands and tossed in a pasta-style sauce – spaghetti squash carbonara and spaghetti squash arrabiatta are both delicious. Then there are the butternuts which tend to be smaller and so are useful as a sort of everyday squash: often cut into wedges and tucked beneath a Sunday roast.

They should be enough but my head has been turned this year by Black Futsu, the seeds for which I bought from Plants Of Distinction. This has knobbly skin like the Marina di Chioggia but is – supposedly – more compact in its habit than other varieties. Next up is the Connecticut squash from Pennard Plants, a heritage variety which is billed on the website as the ‘perfect Halloween pumpkin’and also the variety which greeted the Pilgrims when they arrived in north America from England. This year I’m also trying Crown Prince for the first time – I know everyone raves about the flavour so I thought it was time to see what the fuss was about – and an Atlantic Giant so that I can hold my own on the allotment next to all the other monster pumpkin growers. Quite often in the past my plot neighbours have peered at my pumpkin patch and said, “Yes, but they’re not very big, are they?”.