While some vegetable growers lament a poor and wet harvest Keith Bemrose, 65, of Watton has a very different problem on his plate after his nine acre smallholding unexpectedly yielded thousands of butternut squash which he is now struggling to sell.

Keith first came across the butternut squash during a trip to South Africa some 15 years ago where he noticed the vegetable featured heavily in many of the local dishes.

On his return home Keith and his wife Cherry decided to experiment with growing just a couple of dozen at a time, ignoring advice from some of the South Africans they met on their travels who told them the vegetable would never grow in Britain.

But when Keith, a former property agent, retired last year he decided to amp up the regime and got five acres ploughed up, ordered the seeds from Greece and Africa, planted his first thousand seeds and started ringing around for orders.

The crop failed in the midst of last summer's flooding and by mid-summer this year it looked as though the same was going to happen again.

"This year I thought the same was happening again and they stopped growing so I ignored them and then the weeds grew and you couldn't see them. Then all of a sudden I noticed them and now this has happened," he said while gesturing towards the hundreds of butternut and butterkin squash lined up in his polytunnel waiting to ripen.

Keith has certainly proved his South African sceptics wrong with full rows of boxes and wheel barrows piled high with squash everywhere you turn on the smallholding.

"We have got 2,500 packed into boxes at the moment, there's a big load waiting to be sorted, washed and boxed, and there's some left to pick," he said as he shows me his garage which has taken on the role of temporary store.

Having expected the worst, Keith failed to ring around for orders and after discovering that many of the major supermarkets already have their orders placed with overseas growers he is now hoping local suppliers will take advantage of the bumper crop right on their doorstep.
"I'm pretty confident I will find someone who will have them. They are all graded according to size abroad but here they come as they grow," he said.
According to Keith butternut squash sell at £1.50 to £2.20 a kilo in the supermarkets but his weigh on average two kilos each.

"I have taken some samples over to a farm produce supplier in Middleton-on-the-Wolds but no big orders have come in yet, nothing that's going to make a big mark in the stock that we have got," he said.

In light of the challenge this year's harvest has brought, Keith is unsure if he will have another go next year but he insists it has been an enjoyable experience.

"We have enjoyed growing them, it's been fun. We have often sat there on a mid-summer evening with a glass of wine looking out over them," he added.

Keith can be contacted by email on keith.bemrose@virgin.net