Fruitless Butternut Squash plants :(

[woodypecks]

My   healthy looking Butternut Squashes have lots of male flowers open and lots of female buds which are just refusing to open !
  Anyone else having this problem ?
    I always grow lots of Butternuts from seed , we love'em ....so I,m very disappointed . Courgettes , Delicata and Giant Pink  Banana Squashes are all doing fine...even had some nice Marketmore cucumbers grown outside ..... so whats gone wrong with my Butternuts ?   Is there still time ?

[woodypecks]

[strawberry1]

I was just thinking about the basics ie why do plants produce seed? It is when they get stressed and need to reproduce, so maybe your plants are too well looked after. It seems that they need a happy medium. I had 3 butternut seedlings, one I gave to a neighbour who plonked it in a space that was heavily used by other rampant plants like horseradish, hers produced one small fruit and the plant is struggling too hard and is far too dry. I kept two, one had weaker roots and I think I planted it too high on a small mound,. That one produced two good fruits and is now (too late) producing lots of flowers. The third I put in the ground between two yound apple trees and that has spread all over the place. I didn`t feed it and only watered a bit in the beginning. It has 5 good fruits which are ripening nicely.

[woodypecks]

Hello Strawbs ,Sorry I didn't reply straight away .  Mine have a pigwire frame to climb up .There are now three little Butternuts begining to grow    We are having some good rain at last , but unless we also get some very late sunny days too , then I think they may be too darned late !

I have one massive Pink Banana Squash , which will be chopped up and roasted with potatoes  and one small Delicata Squash , which I,m looking forward to trying .   Courgettes were fantastic . Oh well , we'll try again next year . I,m in the process of making a new Pumpkin patch for next year  . I will try and upload a pic , but if not successful then take a look at my blog , which is mostly about my garden .

[johhnyco15]

butternuts are very hungry plants and need good fertile soil with good drainage if you can give them this and a lot of sun they will thrive hope this helps

[strawberry1]

my best butternut now has 8 fruits, 5 are large and the other 3 are getting bigger rapidly. I took one fruit off to eat today. This plant is the one growing amongst the apple trees and semi shaded at times, I have never fertilised the apple trees. Whatever combination is causing such a vigorous and healthy plant, I don`t know. It has travelled far and wide and I cut the growing tips two weeks ago. It was a sarah raven seed. I am planning on growing two harrier next year, keeping a spare to one side. I did transplant onto a crumbly small mound surrounded by a moat and oh yes I did water in the moat a couple of times with comfrey and a few other times with water, while the plant was small, so I did slightly fertilise in the beginning