Types of squash: 15 tasty varieties to grow at home

The many different types of squash come in all shapes and sizes, from bulbous behemoths and elongated gourds to nobbly baseballs and frilly UFO discs. Graced in neon orange tones, hues of lime, custard and blue-grey, and jolly carnival stripes, there are plenty of breeds to explore. If your squash-growing ambitions have never extended beyond carving classic orange pumpkins, you might be surprised at just how many types of squash can be grown easily in your garden. 

Squash (cucurbita) have been popular homegrown veggies for centuries. There is evidence that the outer skins of winter varieties have been used in the creation of ancient bowls and pots. Squash is one of the core crops used in the ‘Three Sisters’ intercropping planting system (with sweetcorn and beans) favored by North American tribes. They are widely celebrated for being reliable, prolific and packed with nutrients. 

Knowing how to grow butternut squash is one of the key ways to boost your vitamin A intake, and many breeds are loaded with calcium, potassium and iron. And as we show here, squash are dizzyingly diverse. These memorably nutty garden dwellers fill a plot with an assortment of textures and tones from smoky blue hubbards to giant pink banana breeds.          

While fall is traditionally the time to harvest many kinds of winter squash, this is also the perfect time to plan ahead for next year’s bounty. Pick the right cucurbita combinations, and you can be enjoying these quirky croppers from late summer until mid winter. Here are our top picks for your veg patch.

From butternuts, acorns, hubbards, pattypans and dumplings to massive fairytale pumpkins, you’ll find that these squash are some of the easiest vegetables to grow and great fun to experiment with on the plot.  

The selection includes types for summer and winter harvests, with some capable of being stored for six months or even longer. Winter squash take longer to develop those distinctive and often showstopping tough outer skins (100 days), while summer squash mature faster (50 days), are often smaller and have thin outer skins. 

Whether you’re growing for pies and soups or for carving with the kids, there’s a squash type here for every need. Which one will you try first? 

 By Janey Goulding