Topic: Squash growing tips needed

[Garden Manager]

I grow winter squash plants each year. Most years I get a modest crop that could be a lot better. I tend to grow themin similar cconditions to courgettes,, that always crop well. Plants always protected until established and in a poor summer the protection stays on.

This year the plants have grown well seeming to enjoy the good weather. They have been well fed and watered and given a tripod of canes to lift the plants and any fruit  up off the ground. Problem is to date not one single female fruiting flower has grown on any of my three plants!! All flowers are males. I am baffled by this and worried that time is now running out for a crop this year. I had high hopes this year and good weather has encouraged this. Was looking forward to son nice homegrown squash soup etc.

What's  gone wrong? Squash always sound as easy to grow as courgettes and marrows.

[Jayb]

Sounds like you are doing the right things and if your courgette plants are fruiting well it makes it more of a puzzle? Often at the beginning of the season they will produce flowers of one type, usually male ones here, but if they have been planted for a while that's not the case here. What about planting distance and how many squash plants are you growing, what varieties?

[squeezyjohn]

I had exactly the same thing with my (what I thought were giant pumpkins) banana squashes ... the vines got 4-5 foot from their roots before the first female flowers came out ... but then they all came at once.  It was very confusing but now it looks like I'll get a crop of something.

I think the weather has made things different this year for squashes ... but hang on in there ... hopefully something will fruit.

[chriscross1966]

Squashes can be a bit of a diva cos most of them aren't bred for our conditions but something a bit warmer.... if you go for a variety bred fopr northern climes then it will be a bit less of a lottery.... One that always works for me is Winter Festival.... it's a smallish acorn shaped squash, but they store well, just as well cos you will get 6-8 fruits per plant normally, more in a "good" year adn the plants are noticeably better growing than any normal cucurbit.... they yield to the monsters that are Atlantic Giants, but then everything does...

[Garden Manager]

Winter/Butternut squash 'Avalon', 3 plants planted about 2 feet apart inside a makeshift frame for shelter. I gave them tripods of canes to raise them up off the ground too. Been fed regularly with tomato food.

Hope this helps.

[strawberry1]

I have masses of good ripening squashes. I don`t feed them but I put hm compost down a few weeks before planting. I find that butternut can be iffy, my one butternut has 4 good squashes but they appeared much later than red kuri and munchkin. The frame for shelter? what is covering this frame?

Just thinking on my feet here but plants produce fruits in times of stress so maybe they should not be too protected or too fed

re planting distance: I have 1 red kiuri, 1 munchkin and 1 butternut up obelisks all in an 8 x 4 foot bed.

[Garden Manager]

Frame shelter is or was two old cold frame bases without lids and a fence of environmesh between them. One frameremoved to reuse. Plants growing within space of frames and now spilling over the top! Total planting area 3feet by 5 feet.

Maybe too well protected then. One fruit has now grown on one plant (finally ) - outside the frame! Growth has probably prevented frame removal.

[Digeroo]

They are not keen on wind, so some kind of shelter can help.  I plant mine next to straw bales they keep off the worst of the wind and as they rot they give out extra warmth.