Topic: My pumpkins keep giving up - what's wrong?

[gray1720]

For the second year running  my pumpkins are getting so big (about babies head size), then going soft and yellow and dropping off the plant.

I've generally had decent yields from squashes  but this year is a total mixed lot - the pumpkins are as above, sweet dumpling are doing well, the turk's turban are pathetic, and the potimarron are OK (when do I harvest, BTW? When they firm up?) - so I don't get what I'm doing wrong. Especially as I am up to my tits in  courgettes, all on the same half-plot.

They don't get watered - everything on our plots is drawn from wells and carried, and I live far enough away that I simply can't keep up so stuff gets waterd in, then has to take its chance - but  generally in the past stuff had grown OK.

Adrian

[pumkinlover]

I'm not an expert but I know some years it's quite late when squash start to really produce so there's a bit of hope yet.

[gray1720]

I hope you are right - and I also hope that last year's freak frost over the night of September 7th-8th really was a freak!

[saddad]

Butternuts are my Bete Noir.. several times \i think they have set just to fade away... everything else is setting fine, even "serpents" and Malabar gourd...

[tricia]

My butternut squash varieties, Hunter, Waltham and Sucrene du Berry, although sown and planted out at the same time, have developed very erratically - and this year only two on each plant have matured so far and are beginning to change colour. I'm much happier with the two Potimarron plants which are always the first to ripen. I harvested the first three beautiful specimens today from one plant where the foliage had completely died back.  I'll probably end up with a dozen or so all told - enough for my own needs but not enough for my neighbours too! Oh well,  they've done really well with excess blackcurrants,  Morello cherries,  Cobra and Moonlight beans (exceptionally prolific this year) and, of course,  courgettes.
Tricia 

[saddad]

The Cobra are certainly doing well... and the barlotti!

[galina]

Sorry thread drift, but having bought Moonlight seeds to see how much better these crosses between French and Runnerbeans are, they reward me with practically nothing.  Gigandes from the seed circle and Celebration, also my overwintered runnerbean from last year have given us pounds.  Glad you are getting joy with Moonlight Tricia. 

[JanG]

Interested that you had pounds from Gigandes. I’ve grown them this year but kept them all for seed and dried beans. Do they eat well as sliced green beans too?

[saddad]

One of my serpents is now nearly as tall as I am!!! Well it comes up to my chest (as the song goes!) so I'm quite impressed, another is as long as my arm... all I need now is to find out what to do with them in the kitchen!

[galina]

Yes, they do eat well as green beans.  I guess I could leave them for seeds now, but the early ones certainly were good 

[galina]

I find tromboncino aka serpents the easiest of all the moschata squashes to grow.  Maxima squashes have always done better for me.  Butternuts can be stroppy if it is not hot at the right time, they really do want more heat. 

[galina]

Serpents store well, so what to do with them in the kitchen can be solved much later.  They can be eaten as courgettes, but why not eat them as winter squash?  They will need peeling but so do butternuts, which are in the same family. 

[gray1720]

Well, so far I have two potimarron and six sweet dumpling from about a dozen plants all told... The pumpkins seem to be setting a second batch, so I'm just praying that we don't get an early September frost like last year!

It's weird - someone a few plots down has no squashes at all, but then a few plots over someone else has Turk's Turban I can see from two plots away.

[Paulh]

Looks like I'll get three Crown Prince, four Pink Banana and three potimarron off 12 plants. I don't think I'll have any Black Futsu or Sweet Mama as they got planted out late and haven't really flowered or set any fruit as far as I can see. I've no butternuts this year as the seeds didn't germinate.

[tricia]

My harvest won't be spectacular this year either. Four beautiful Potimarrons are currently curing by my patio doors - they are always the earliest. There are also seven butternuts in various stages of ripening and two huge Sucrene du Berry (which I believe are also of the butternut family) for a total of 13 from 9 plants.

Tricia 

[saddad]

I have found the serpents ridiculously easy to grow... no sign of powdery mildew even now, despite sharing a frame with veg spaghetti which is rapidly keeling over.. although I have had a couple of dozen good sized fruit from five plants... the only other squash without mildew is the "Malabar Gourd" AKA Shark's Fin Squash...

[JanG]

I’ve only just caught on to the popularity and productivity of tromboncino/serpents and I intend to grow them next year. I hadn’t realised that they store well though. I usually attempt to grow butternut as the longest storing squash.
Does the storage of serpents rank alongside butternuts?

[galina]

Not quite as good as butternut, although I had some that stored to May.  But certainly into the first couple of months of the new year.  And when you find a tiny rot mark, you still have an awful lot of squash once you cut that out.  They need inspecting as does any stored squash I guess. 

On the plus side, there is so much flesh without seeds or seed cavity because of the long necks and the seeds are only in the bell end, that preparing is very easy.

[gray1720]

Are you quite sure about that last sentence, galina? Admittedly I have a sense of humour like a drain, but it got a smirk out of me!

[pumkinlover]

Are you quite sure about that last sentence, galina? Admittedly I have a sense of humour like a drain, but it got a smirk out of me!

Yes you have