How are everyone's squashes doing?

[john4576]

This is one of the Hunter Butternut squash. Been in since mid-may so about 2 months. Is this going to get fruit on it. Ive follow just about the dates of the Butternut growing trial i came across. But dont seem anywhere near how they report.
http://apps.rhs.org.uk/planttrials/T...ash%202008.pdf

[ameno]

If you live in the South, hopefully it will still crop. If you live up north, quite possibly not.

[SimpleSimon]

Do people bother to hand polinate their winter squash? Most of mine have only 1 or 2 fruits that have set. And not really that many female flowers. A few of them didn't polinate. I've noticed things have started to take off more with loads of male flowers and a few immature female flowers. Lots of bees about the plants. The earlier ones that set I hand polinated but wondering if to continue or just let nature run its course. I defo could do with more squash polinating than I currently have tho and ideally in the next 2-3 weeks if they are gonna ripen.

[ameno]

I always hand pollinate.
Although bees love the flowers, I find they are not actually very reliable pollinators.
Flowers open at dawn and only last a day, so either hand pollinate first thing in the morning (just pick a freshly opened male flower, remove the petals, and rub the pollen onto the stigma of a female flower), or else do what I do and look for male flowers which look like they will open the next day, tie the petals with string, then go down the next day at you leisure, untie them, and hand pollinate.
If you leave the flowers open then you will find the pollen is all gone by the afternoon, taken by bees (although not, in my experience, taken to the female flowers, sadly).

[Plot70]

I have got white tailed bees nesting under my allotment shed.
Some flowers have not set on plants that already have swelling fruit on them.
Three marrows actively forming on one plant is certainly going to lead to further flowers aborting.
I have just let the plants attract the bees and get on with it.

[SimpleSimon]

I always hand pollinate.
Although bees love the flowers, I find they are not actually very reliable pollinators.
Flowers open at dawn and only last a day, so either hand pollinate first thing in the morning (just pick a freshly opened male flower, remove the petals, and rub the pollen onto the stigma of a female flower), or else do what I do and look for male flowers which look like they will open the next day, tie the petals with string, then go down the next day at you leisure, untie them, and hand pollinate.
If you leave the flowers open then you will find the pollen is all gone by the afternoon, taken by bees (although not, in my experience, taken to the female flowers, sadly).

Do the female flowers only last a day as well?

Tieing the flowers up is a great idea as lately I've got there a little late and all the pollen has gone. That all said some of my plants are so huge that actually getting to the flowers is a bit risky as it's hard to wade in to the jungle and not break a stem.

Edit - also can you polinate from a different type of winter squash? Say a male flower from a crown prince and a female flower of a butternut or blue Hubbard?

And why are summer squash so prolific at pollinating and winter squash aren't? Pretty sure every corgette plant I've ever seen as all flowers growing fruit. Wish a few would just fall off to be honest

[ameno]

Female flowers only last a day, too, yes.

You can pollinate with any variety of winter squash as long as it is the same species.
Butternuts are a different species (Cucurbita moschata), as are Acorn and munchkin squash (C. pepo), but the majority of winter squash are C. maxima.
So Crown Prince and Blue Hubbard would be compatible (both C. maxima), but a butternut would not be compatible with either of those.

[peanut]

My Potimarron are forming fruits, my others, Autumn Crown and sweet Dumpling haven't got fruits yet but are looking good.

[SimpleSimon]

Is it advisable to prune back some side shoots of squash plants? I've 4 plants out of control. They are at about 8ft in all directions from the base of the plant and now have new leaders clambering all over other beds. They are going down the paths now which isn't an issue but are onto my partner's flower bed is defo going to cause arguments. I have 3 squash beds and these 4 are at least 5x the size of any other plant. They were planted in fresh manure as an experiment. For reference this picture is of those 4. It's an absolute jungle. They have not set many fruits yet and are just starting to produce a decent number of female flowers.

I think I probably need to do something about it as I'd imagine by the end of aug these are.going to be all over the place.

[ameno]

From the perspective of the plants themselves, you don't need to do any pruning. However, if you want to keep them a little more under control then you can pinch out the side shoots after one female flower bud.

Also, 8ft is nothing. Mine are already trailing to some 15ft and show no sign of stopping anytime soon.

[SimpleSimon]

Okey doke I'll prune a few of the errant side shoots back after the first female bud. It will still leave 3 or 4 descent shoots that can grow as long as they like down the paths. The tip of tieing up the male flowers worked well this morning. Used an elastic band round about 10 of them and most were ready to open and had pollen on them so managed to spread it round a few of the open female flowers. Probably going to stop when I've got 4 or 5 set on each plant.

[Deltawhiskey]

I planted three courgette seeds in one of my raised beds. They are producing so many courgettes that I am having to give them away to very happy neighbours. Take your eye off them for a moment and you have marrows!

Delta

[burnie]

Courgette outside is looking a bit sorry, but the Butternuts in the greenhouse seem to be coming along.

[SimpleSimon]

Ok so following tip to tie up the male flowers of my squash plants it looks like I've managed to polinate quite a few female flowers. So great. And it looks like lots more are coming. How many is too many?

I'm growing butternut, blue Hubbard, crown prince, marina di chiogga and red kuri.

I was thinking maybe just 3 of the bigger ones and 5 of the butternut and red kuri? In which case think I'm pretty much there bar a couple of plants as I can't really get to them without risking standing on a vine.

[ameno]

There isn't really a max limit to how many you should allow a plant to bear, as they are pretty good at regulating their own crop, and will abort female flowers when the plant already has too many fruit for it too keep up with.
I think that's a reasonable number to stop hand-pollinating at, though, and then if any more set on their own, just let them.