Butternut squash

[burnie]

Which variety is that? They look more compact than our two Walthams which have clambered out of the raised bed, half way up the lawn one way and weaving round the back of the garden the other. The vines must be 7 or 8 metres long!

They are Suttons F1 Hunter, I pinch out the growing tips so the plants don't get massive as mine are in an 8 x 12 greenhouse, they have pretty much taken over one side of it though, 4 plants that get the same feeding as my tomatoes.

[Logunner]

Growing Walthams as my first Butternut and going well. Ripening this one in the conservatory, weighs 2.65kgs.

[nickdub]

Well my Butternut squash have just started flowering - wondering what the chance of getting a crop is before the first frost which is usually at the end of October.

[mcdood]

Good luck nick, you're going to need a lot of it
Some of mine are now just starting to turn from green to a bit more orangey.

[nickdub]

Good luck nick, you're going to need a lot of it
Some of mine are now just starting to turn from green to a bit more orangey.

Thanks - not sure what went wrong, they went in plenty early enough but only recently really started growing - now they are like triffids but probably too late to crop I expect.

[ameno]

Well my Butternut squash have just started flowering - wondering what the chance of getting a crop is before the first frost which is usually at the end of October.

With butternut, unlikely.

My Marina di Chioggia are about a week ahead of yours (the flowers pollinated about a week ago and a growing strong now), and even they are going to be touch-and-go whether they ripen in time, and they are a variety that doesn't need as much heat and sunlight as butternut, and my first frost isn't usually until late November.

[nickdub]

OK my largest butternut squash is now about the shape and size of two medium desert apples side by side - what do you experts reckon the chances are of getting one to ripen ?

[mcdood]

I'm no expert but it does raise a good question Nick. Will the fruit try to get to it's natural size which would be larger or will it decide time is short and try to ripen instead. I have absolutely no idea

[ameno]

OK my largest butternut squash is now about the shape and size of two medium desert apples side by side - what do you experts reckon the chances are of getting one to ripen ?

Fully? Probably zero.
But as long as we get a half decent early autumn, I think you have a fair chance of it getting to the point where it is starting to ripen on the plant before frosts come, after which you can finish it off indoors. It won't be quite as good as it would be if properly ripened on the plant, but it's a lot better than nothing.

[nickdub]

I'll report back in due course how things go - I've got a few bits of poly-carb sheet knocking around, so I might stick a bit of that over the plants.

[ameno]

I'd also advise removing all but the largest fruit on each plant. At this late stage, it's best to have the plant focus all its energy into hopefully growing a single ripe fruit, rather than multiple immature ones.

[mcdood]

That's one of the reasons why I don't know what happens to the little ones as I always remove those and any new flowers so the plant can put all it's energy into trying to ripen the bigguns.

[nickdub]

OK my best squash is about 9" long and gone a yellowy-orange colour - should I bring it inside now ? (first frost round here likely to be later towards the end of the month)

[mcdood]

Nice one. Mine are still outside and the forecast here for the next couple of weeks is a min temp 8/9 deg so I'll aim to leave them out for a couple of weeks yet to get some rays if it ever stops raining.

[bikermike]

I'm hedging my bets - they had a nice hard skin and the plants were well and truly dying off. Oddly the plant has thrown almost identical combos of 1 large, 1 small on two different limbs. So I've taken one set in and left one out