Guardian Life & Style (US) • Jan. 8, 2026, 6:25 a.m.

This superb winter salad uses shaved and roast pumpkin to bring a riot of textural contrast and a flash of colour to a grey winter’s day I try to grow a few varieties of squash every season, but in the past couple of years the results have more or less failed me. I originally put that down to the lack of time and attention I’d given those poor plants, but I’m now starting to wonder if the soil in my raised garden beds overlooking Lyme Bay in Dorset is actually right for them.

I’m not giving up just yet, though, and this year I’ll be trying different varieties in a different bed that I’ve prepared and composted over the winter with seaweed mulch. As luck would have it, however, my friend Rob Corbett came to the rescue a couple of weeks ago by giving me several specimens when he delivered some wine from his Castlewood vineyard a few miles away in east Devon.

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