Has anyone got Butternuts yet?

[redimp]

Silly Question.  What are gourds?

Anna

Home counties deities  ;D

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/hil/hil-29.html - All about Gourds.

[redimp]

[Nathan]

At last, loads of baby butternuts.  Now to get them ripe.  Must go buy a cloche or two. Or make one.  Any reccommendations?

[Debs]

I have plenty of flowers forming so will wait patiently

(at least a day!! ) and investigate.

Debs ;D

[moonbells]

At last, loads of baby butternuts.  Now to get them ripe.  Must go buy a cloche or two. Or make one.  Any reccommendations?

Some recommendations:
1) a Geoff Hamilton cloche
go to Paul's Garden World http://www.powen.freeserve.co.uk/ and navigate to garden projects and Geoff Hamilton cloche

2) a simple tunnel cloche - basically a large GH cloche
(same site - has nice diagram)

You can get blue alkathene water pipe from Wickes or plumbers' supplies: round us the Wickes piping came out cheaper.

Cover the cloche with fleece -  making sure it's heavy duty and also wide enough for your bed. You can also cover with plastic sheeting but don't forget to water regularly in that case as rain can't get in!

3) Just cover the whole bed with fleece and forget the supports.

moonbells

ps this was what I did
http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/yabbse/index.php/topic,9351.msg84523.html#msg84523

[westsussexlottie]

I will fleece mine at the end of next week - but I have about 10 butternuts on each plant!

[Nathan]

Thanks for the tips Moonbells.   I'll use fleece and some homemade supports.  While we're on the subject, can you pick butternuts small or will they taste 'wrong'?

[moonbells]

Thanks for the tips Moonbells.   I'll use fleece and some homemade supports.  While we're on the subject, can you pick butternuts small or will they taste 'wrong'?

If they're still stripy I would leave them until they are golden.  I'm sure you could eat them earlier but I'm not sure they'd have the right taste.  Mine (still a singleton) is still at that stage and I'm wondering how to help it ripen. Will probably just put a pop bottle over the fruit.

moonbells

[bellebouche]

I had a funny start with my butternuts, lots and lots of flowering, very little fruit set and then.. a significant change, a couple of fruit set and then it all took off like wildfire. I had one fruit in particular that I cut off early (green/stripey skin) and that has now matured into a light yellow off the vine.

I've left all of the ofther fruit on the vines (after advice given here!) and they're all doing quite well. I'm a first time gardener with these and I've followed the cultiavtion instructions on the seed packet to the letter. I bought the seed in South Africa and the recommendation to grow them goes like this..

They suggest a 1M diameter raised circular ridge with a slightly dished out interior, with the seeds planted around the rim. I have three plants equally spaced around the rim of each circle and three butternut circles in total, nine plants.

I'd filled the interior of the dish with some old hay as a mulch and it has made watering a fairly simple process, each 'dish' gets an 11l watering can full once every couple of days. The soil had many hundreds of litres of old chicken manure dug in and has had the odd handful of a non-organic balanced granulaer fertilizer and now mostly gets the odd half bucket of a homemade organic nettle 'soup'. The change to the nettle soup stuff coincided with the blaze of fruit set but I've been too timid to experiment on some of the plants by not feeding this stuff.

I'll see if I can figure out some photos if anyone is interested?

[discovery]

I have no butternuts yet, and mine are on manure as well, plenty of leaf and nowt else!

[westsussexlottie]

mine went into freshly dug not very good soil without manure and were neglected. They have romped and gone crazy producing squashes. Perhaps manure is simply too rich for them?

[Nathan]

Well off I went with high hopes of acquiring a cloche only to find a nasty little overpriced plastic thing, about £10 and covering maybe 2 square feet.  What a disappointment.    Next step was to investigate perspex or pvc sheets, my idea was that two rectangular pieces can be taped together along a long edge to form a hinge and produce a simple cloche.   Clear rigid plastic, however, turns out to be really expensive.

So now I'm on to idea number 3 which is going to involve wood and plastic, and which I will describe if it proves successful.  The design spec is:  Cheap, light, single object that does not require 'putting up', must stack when not in use.  I am aiming to keep the price below £1/square foot. Watch this space and wish me luck.

[redimp]

There was a very chilled out bumble bee in one of my pumpkin flowers today so I am hopeful that I might have my first taker.  Hopefully there is time for it to get big enough for the kids to have a homegrown pumpkin to carve come the end of October.

[Nathan]

our butternuts are all about an inch long! but they have pretty flowers.
      Ruth

[Tulipa]

I was thrilled today to find two 2" butternuts, I am really excited - first time growing them thanks to A4A, I hadn't even heard of them this time last year and am now hooked on them!

[Anne Robertson]

I'm so lucky, I have aprox. 20 butternuts ranging in size from 6cm to 30cm.
They are all hidden under foliage, should I cut back some of the leaves to give them a better chance of ripening?
I took the camera down to take a photo at 7 this morning but the battery died on me :(

[moonbells]

 ;D ;D

I just cleared out a bit of the understairs storage so I could fit in some of the jam I made yesterday - and found one of last year's butternuts hiding at the back!!!

And it's still solid!!

I suspect butternut squash soup will be on the menu this week...  ;D ;D ;D ;D

moonbells

[scumpy]

Hi all

My Butternuts have been doing OK
4 plants, approx 15 squashes, feeling quite pleased with my first attempt.
Now disaster, 2 squashes have split.

Should i pick the rest even though they are still a little green?
Any idea whats gone wrong?

[bellebouche]

Now disaster, 2 squashes have split.
...
Any idea whats gone wrong?

Yes, had a couple of mine split... these were large fruits with no leaf-cover that have been exposed to full-sun. We had an extended hot/dry spell here and then a Major day-long downpour where everything got a soaking and then the heat returned again. It was hot-downpour-hot sequence that made a couple of my fruits rupture and then crack open a bit.

The 'wound' oozed a bit and has then hardened off and healed up.

All the fruits that lie underneath the leaf canopy of the plants are doing just fine. I'd say leave them on, let them fix themselves and see how it goes.

I don't ever remember seeing a fruit that was as damaged as some of mine have become... but presumably it happens and they're just filtered out in the QC process before they reach the store.

[john_miller]

If you do decide to keep damaged fruit on the plant then you should keep a look-out for infection by opportunistic pathogens. In particular at this time of year conditions for black rot (Didymella bryoniae) infection on squash are quite favourable and it will readily germinate in damaged fruit.

[Ern]

  I'm growing squashes for the first time. I have 'Golden Delicious' - three plants with three fruits between them - but I don't know if they're mature yet, and 'Butternut Sprinter' - three plants racing across the plot at great speed, but producing only male flowers: not a fruit in sight.  Anyone know whay that could be ??