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Thanks all for the replies on BNS.  I spoke to my mum yesterday and she's going to leave it on the plant for a while but keep an eye on it - don't want to loose it now!  Haven't checked mine for a few days........ :-\

You normally leave the skins to harden but they can be eaten at any time. Mine got off to a slow start, and haven't produced a female flower yet.

Although be careful about leaving them to harden in a warm sunlit place - ours were late last year so when it started to get really damp and cold they were still not completely ripe - so we put them in our greenhouse to ripen off and harden the skins off for storage - only they kept on getting riper and riper and riper until - they were too ripe! They did what all fruit does eventually and started to rot - make sure you get them somewhere cool and dark once they are ready - we lost about 10 butternuts last year like that!!

Sorry to be a bit dense but does that mean that I can take the fruits off my squash now that are big enough and ripen them, allowing some of the smaller fruits to grow bigger.  I have 3 monsters which are great but I don't want them bigger (only 2 of us!).

Thanks!

If you don't want to eat them now, they're probably best left on the plant.