Advice
Storing pumpkins and squashes
With proper storage conditions well ripened fruits of pumpkins and squashes will last for many months.
Ripening fruit
Protect
growing fruits from damp by placing them on tiles or bricks.
Leave the fruits on the vine as long as possible turning the
fruits occasionally to avoid a pale base. The foliage can
be cut away around the fruits near harvest to encourage ripening.
When the skin on the fruit hardens, cut from the plant with a longish piece of stalk and leave the fruit in the sun for a week or two to continue curing. When ripe the fruit should sound hollow when tapped. Cover fruit on frosty nights to protect them.
If weather conditions are unsuitable fruit can be cured in a warm shed or greenhouse for a couple of weeks. This will help cure semi-ripe fruit at the end of the season, but will not work for green fruits which are best made into pickle or chutney.
Storing fruit
Ripe fruits should be stored cool (10°C/50°F), but not freezing, in a dry shed or similar building. Pumpkins, like marrows, usually don’t keep after midwinter, so use these first. Squashes keep longer, perhaps until early spring, but to do this they need to be kept very dry and ideally, reasonably warm - an unheated indoor room or the understairs cupboard are often suitable. There is no need to exclude light.
Summer squashes, including outsize courgettes, don’t keep well and are indifferent eating. Marrows are better, but do not usually keep after midwinter. Store these fruits as recommended for pumpkins.
Clean the fruit before storing and wipe with a weak household disinfectant solution. Do not let fruits touch each other and watch for signs of rotting. At the first sign of rot remove fruit from the store.
Although it is tempting to collect seeds to sow in the following year, gardeners should be aware that squashes and pumpkins are very promiscuous. Progeny may very well not resemble their parents if more than one cultivar is grown.
Growing pumpkins
For information on this topic visit the BBC gardening website