Last week, I wrote about some of my winter squashes not storing well this season. I gave a few potential reasons that I’ve come across in the past, like:
- Having damaged skin or bruised flesh
- Not being ripe enough
- Sitting on soggy soil and not getting light/air to all parts of the squash
One lovely reader (thank you) emailed in to mention another point, and I had totally forgotten about it so I wanted to mention it this week: If, when the squash is harvested, it does not retain a good stump of stalk, then the squash is more likely to rot.
You can see in the photo here the difference in stalk length between the two butternut squashes – the one with the longer stalk will inevitably keep for longer.
It’s a really good reminder for me, when it comes to next autumn, to carefully harvest by using secateurs to snip the fruits from the vine, leaving a good couple of inches of stalk attached.