Courgettes are part of the curcubit family and one of the group known as summer squash. Those fruit in the summer and the fruits are best picked and eaten young. There is another group called winter squash, normally picked later and suitable for storing over long periods. I’m growing a winter squash variety called Jumbo Pink Banana from the Real Seed Company. In theory, I should wait until the vines die down in the autumn but I had to bring one back from the allotment today – it was so large that it was causing the vine to collapse. At about 1.6kg, that’s a decent harvest all in itself and there are several more fruit forming both on that vine and others. Hopefully some will last until the autumn!