Spaghetti Squash - a couple of mine are rotting...

[Russel Sprout]

Hi all

I've just recently come back from a week away... I've got 8 - 10 spaghetti squashes in the garden. The plants have pretty much gone completely now, but the squashes are still on the vine. I noticed this morning that a couple of them were lighter coloured at the stem end, and upon looking further and giving them a prod I found that they are rotting and have gone soft where it is lighter coloured.

Does anyone know why this is happening and what I can do to prevent it happening with the other squashes? I've also got some butternuts and uchiki kuris and want to make sure they'll be ok if possible. Some will need to be stored long term over winter...

Photos below.

Many thanks

Max

[Thelma Sanders]

Pick them all and bring them inside. It has been too cold and wet for them, especially at night, for the last couple of weeks IMO.
Dry them out/ripen them as best you can and check them regularly for any more signs of early rotting.

Oh, and keep your fingers crossed

[Russel Sprout]

OK Thelma, thanks. Will do.

For future reference, what kind of temperature/time of year is it right for squashes to come off the plant? I thought that it had been quite mild this October and that they would have been ok. But I use the term "thought" loosely as I'm still new to a lot of this. Would be good to know for future...

When you say "pick them all", do you mean all the spaghettis or all of the squashes full stop? Some of the others still have a bit of foliage left, although a lot has died back. On the Uchiki Kuri squashes, some stems have gone cork-like/dry, while some still seem more alive/fresh. Photos below. ALL of the stems on the spag squashes are corky coloured but soft and wet; which I'm guessing means they might soon start to rot as well???

Got to dash to work now so will add the photos later.

Thanks for all the help.

[Thelma Sanders]

As I said, I'd bring them all inside to dry off.
A nice warm, dry autumn is ideal for squashes - but this year we seem to have some mild days - but many wet/cool nights.
A few weeks ago, here, we were recording nigh-time temps of only 7C. So I picked all of mine and put them in the greenhouse. It may have kept them a little warmer at night - but mostly it kept them dry - and was hot enough during the days to ripen them fully.