Crown Prince squashes.

[Hepsibah]

I bought one of these magnificent squashes at a car boot sale years ago and have been hankering for another ever since with no luck.
This year however I have several healthy plants flowering and spreading gaily around my garden with the possibility of bushels of yummy Crown Prince squashes in the future.   

The trouble is, I have no clue what to do next.  I am watering daily and it has had a couple of doses of miracle grow and a couple of 20-10-10. It has lots of flowers and foliage and tiny, pea sized fruits.  Do I just leave it to do its own thing? It seems to want to climb....

[Hepsibah]

[lottie lou]

Be careful if you want it to climb.  They can get quite big and heavy.  My largest was about 16lb.  I just feed mine comfrey liquid and leave it alone to do what it wants.   Also when fruits grow bung straw underneath the fruit to lift it off the soil.  I do only one or two fruits per plant.

[gavinjconway]

20-10-10 is for leafy plants so i'd rather go for comfrey tea or a low nitrogen fertilizer.. i.e. High potash for fruiting is required.  The miracle grow is good as a general fert.. 

[Digeroo]

My miracle grow is 24-8-12. 

If you do not have a handy bucket full of comfrey stinking its way round your garden, I would suggest blood, fish and bone, or perhaps tomato fertilizer.   Curcurbits love biomatter, so I give mine a mulch of compost a good bucket full, or a large pile of weedkiller free lawn clippings, once they have a an initial heat up and gone brown.  Or even a large pile of weeds the pumpkin will not let them grow beneath it.