Myths About Growing Squash in Scotland

“Squash spacing is the same whatever variety you grow”

RHS gives two different figures depending on growth habit: 90cm apart for bush varieties, 1.5m for trailing ones, roughly two-and-a-half times the space. Garden Organic gives a narrower 60-90cm range for the same transplant step, without distinguishing habit at all.

Our read Squash gets sold and thought of as one vegetable, so it's an easy step to assume one spacing figure covers it. Bush and trailing types actually use the ground so differently that the same distance would either waste space or starve the plants, depending which way you got it wrong.

What to do: Check whether your variety is a compact bush type or a sprawling trailing type before spacing it, rather than assuming a single figure applies across the board.

“Powdery mildew on squash means you've been overwatering”

Insufficient moisture encourages powdery mildew on squash, not excess. The advice is to water regularly and directly to the soil, avoiding wet foliage, which addresses both fungal risk and drought stress at once.

Our read Mildew looks like a damp-conditions problem, and plenty of fungal diseases genuinely are, which makes it easy to assume the fix is less water rather than more. Squash runs the other way.

What to do: If powdery mildew appears, check whether the plant has been going short of water rather than cutting back on watering, and keep water off the leaves either way by watering at the base.

“Winter squash and pumpkins are ready to harvest once they've grown to a good size”

Ripeness is tested by colour and sound, not size: fully coloured skin, and a hollow sound when tapped. A winter squash or pumpkin can reach full size well before its skin has hardened enough to store.

Our read Size is the obvious, visible signal, so it's the one most people check first. Storage life depends on skin hardness and full colour developing, which happen after the fruit stops getting noticeably bigger, not alongside it.

What to do: Judge readiness by colour and the tap test, not size, and leave the fruit on the plant as long as the season allows for the skin to fully harden before the first frost.

“Cutting winter squash or pumpkins close to the fruit gives a neater result”

RHS specifies leaving at least 10cm of stem attached on both its squash and pumpkin pages independently, and Garden Organic's combined guide agrees: cutting too close leaves a soft area on the fruit that's prone to rotting in storage.

Our read A short, tidy stem looks like better workmanship, the way a close, clean cut usually is elsewhere in the garden. Winter squash and pumpkins punish exactly that instinct: the stem is protecting the one point the fruit can't seal itself.

What to do: Leave a generous stem, at least 10cm, when cutting winter squash or pumpkins for storage, even if it looks untidier than trimming close.

“Pumpkins are a completely different plant from squash, just marketed differently”

Pumpkins are a type of winter squash, not a separate plant. RHS still maintains two separate grow-your-own guides for them, because the practical concerns genuinely differ: pumpkins get a giant-fruit growing technique and no AGM varieties at all, while squash gets a summer/winter split and six AGM picks.

Our read Different names, different shapes, and a Halloween-specific reputation all make pumpkins feel like their own category. Botanically they're not: RHS still treats them as separate pages because growers reach for them with different goals, not because they're different plants.

What to do: Treat pumpkin and squash growing advice as interchangeable wherever it doesn't specifically depend on fruit size or storage use, and expect pumpkin-specific guidance to focus on carving suitability and giant-growing technique that a general squash page won't cover.

“Winter squash and pumpkins can go straight into storage off the vine, no curing needed”

Standard advice is to cure squash and pumpkins before storing them, not store them straight off the plant.

What to do: After harvest, lay pumpkins and winter squash out in the sun (or a greenhouse/coldframe) for a week to 10 days to harden and cure the skins before moving them into cool storage.