Single Giant Squash!

[Grow Bag]

Hello everyone, I am a fairly novice gardener for things other than tomatoes and chillies! For the first time last year I tried to grow butternut squash... I had one huge squash.. and all of the others withered and died when they got to about an inch long... I had this a few years ago also with a pumpkin. I have set another plant this weekend. So would like to avoid this happening again if possible. Any ideas/advice? (or just a reason why this would happen). Many thanks

[nickdub]

Sounds like a pollination problem - what I sometimes do is pick off a male flower and use it to make sure all the female ones which are ready are pollinated by touching the relevant bits together. Temperature can be a factor too in pollination, so may be as we had a very hot summer last year that also didn't help.

[veggiechicken]

Hi Grow Bag - welcome back
Maybe the little ones weren't pollinated? Grow a few plants and help them along by "introducing" the male flowers to the females. I'll leave the process to your imagination.

Snap Nick.

[Grow Bag]

Sounds like a pollination problem - what I sometimes do is pick off a male flower and use it to make sure all the female ones which are ready are pollinated by touching the relevant bits together. Temperature can be a factor too in pollination, so may be as we had a very hot summer last year that also didn't help.

That's great, thanks so much. Will keep my eye on the flowers

[Bex2012]

Last year was terrible for pumpkins and squashes, I planted 12 plants for our allotment sale day and was lucky if I got six fruit, it was just too hot and all the plants produced up until September was male flowers.

[Mark_Riga]

Last year was terrible for pumpkins and squashes, I planted 12 plants for our allotment sale day and was lucky if I got six fruit, it was just too hot and all the plants produced up until September was male flowers.

Same year here produced a bumper crop. Still eating ours and the freezer is stuffed with squash and pumpkin. 3 Rugosa butternuts weighed over 5kg well over 40kg total.
May be pollination improves if several varieties are grown. I did water them whenever I saw the leaves flagging - and had stuck canes in where they were planted so I could locate them with the hosepipe.