How are everyone's squashes doing?

[Plot70]

I left mine on the plant until the frost took the leaves off.
The leaves usually protect the fruits until they collapse.

[ameno]

Cut my last squash today, as a frost is due tomorrow night.
It weighed 4kg. That brings my total for the year to 79kg of squash.

[Plot70]

I did not weigh my squashes.
Getting told off for growing too many was all I did.

[peanut]

Harvested the last 3 of my Autumn Crown, it's already down to 2c here. Brrrrr!

[Ms-T]

Harvested all 7 of the Kang kob pumpkin as we had a light frost last night and 2 baby butternuts.

[Chestnut]

I did not weigh my squashes.
Getting told off for growing too many was all I did.

Me too

Managed to give away 4 boxes full, and eaten a dozen or so , but still have 30 pumpkins on the shelf in the garage...

[SimpleSimon]

Finally sorted all mine today as a frost is due tonight.


42 butternuts 30.3 kg
15 red kuri 12kg
9 marina di chioggia 48.8kg
4 blue hubbards 27.8kg
3 crown prince. 12.8kg

Erm so not sure how I am gonna eat all these haha.

[Ms-T]

^^^ nice mix.

[ameno]

Finally sorted all mine today as a frost is due tonight.


42 butternuts 30.3 kg
15 red kuri 12kg
9 marina di chioggia 48.8kg
4 blue hubbards 27.8kg
3 crown prince. 12.8kg

Erm so not sure how I am gonna eat all these haha.

I thought I grew a lot...

[SimpleSimon]

Well last year I grew 4 plants and got a single, underipe butternut. Was a disaster so it's defo an improvement on that. Half of these were grown in completely fresh manure as an experiment. They did the best by miles. The butternuts in the fresh manure went bonkers. Alot of them are quite small with a few huge ones but all plants produced loads of fruit.
"‹"‹"‹"‹

[Plot70]

If anything I planted my squashes too close together but what I did find was that turban vines naturally grew mostly east and north and mowed down a row of onions.
I measured them in wheel barrow loads.

[ameno]

I probably grew mine too close together, too, but I find it can be hit and miss whether a plant will actually produce lots of fruit, or whether you'll only get a couple, even if you do space them out, so I prefer to plant them close and get a decent crop per square metre. Seeds are cheap, after all.
Plus I like to grow multiple varieties, and that's easier if I can grow lots of plants, but I don't have the space to grow lots of plants and space them all out properly.

One thing I think I definitely did was grow my sweet potatoes too close to the squashes. The row I planted near the squashes had less leaf growth (although they were still pretty rampant) and averaged about 1.8kg per plant. The two plants I planted away from them, with only smaller, shallow-rooted crops nearby, grew masses and masses of leaves (they smothered some of the crops nearby, in fact) and gave almost 5kg per plant.

[Bhilltop]

Here's the result of our first attempt at growing winter squash. A few lessons learned.

1. Grow them in the ground not in containers, unless you're prepared to water them more often than I am
2. They are hungry
3. Next time we will try to grow them vertically so we can move in our garden

Great fun growing them and the kids were absolutely fascinated. Giant pumpkins next year yay! He says...

[Ms-T]

Nice squash ,they really do like to take over every thing.

[ameno]

Here's the result of our first attempt at growing winter squash. A few lessons learned.

1. Grow them in the ground not in containers, unless you're prepared to water them more often than I am
2. They are hungry
3. Next time we will try to grow them vertically so we can move in our garden

Great fun growing them and the kids were absolutely fascinated. Giant pumpkins next year yay! He says...

Yeah, containers definitely aren't a good idea unless you are prepared to water twice a day and a happy with a reduced yield.

If you want to grow them vertically, then I would advise a smaller fruited variety, like the Uchiki Kuri in that picture. Large fruited varieties are too big really to grow up a trellis. The sheer weight of them is liable to snap the plant stems, and if it doesn't then the combined weight of several fruits may well make the support structure collapse unless it is very sturdy.