How are everyone's squashes doing?

[Right Shed Fred]

First attempt at putting photos:
One plant flowered loads in one go, then all the flowers snapped/fell off. Perhaps a strange flush of male flowers? There is no fruit on that one actually. I only noticed that when taking the photo.

[Plot70]

I had one mangy turban pumpkin that produced male flowers only for quite a while.
It was planted out late after being held back to replace any failures in my main bed.
It now has a few females that have set.
The main bed was started off with bottom heat from actively rotting manure and all of the plants have done well.

[ameno]

Been away for five days. Checked the allotment today and the squash have gone mad. They've grown about 6 feet since I've been away, and I now have at least 13 fruits set, possibly a couple more.

[SimpleSimon]

Went to polinate a few flowers this morning and this little fella had already started without me .

[Ms-T]

What a lovely photo.

[peanut]

A Beeautiful photo

[Plot70]

That is a nice photo.
Bees do tend to get absolutely covered in pollen when they go into squash flowers.
My squash bed is now too crowded for me to easily get in with the camera.

[ameno]

An update on my squash.

The plants have now claimed the bottom half of my plot for their own, and are attempting to escape next door.
https://i.imgur.com/BLeQGak.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/mKvgSQD.jpg

And the best of the squashes (there are more small ones that weren't worth photographing). CD for scale.
https://i.imgur.com/7QT7FK2.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/jKtg9mx.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/TuIVFad.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/5FMxfQ3.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/iODlkTz.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/DkbEjxp.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/mIfdQ6b.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/4IlnDFW.jpg

[Plot70]

My turbans are heading for a trench where I am dealing with some nice top soil that is contaminated with many weed seeds that is to be next years parsnip bed.
Some of the on line photos show turbans with red on them.
Mine are starting either yellow or green and developing to yellow when ripe.
I put some spare grass greening fluid mixed with ordinary fertilizer on them and the vines are heading for 15 feet in length.
some fruits are heading for a foot across.

[ameno]

The green ones should go orange when fully ripe. Or at least, that's how the ones I grew were.

[Plot70]

You are right.
The one in the last photo is ripening to yellow/orange.

[SA Farrell]

I only have 2 maturing squashes..the one i photographed has yellowed and fallen off. 2 more are developing nicely, but worried that something is causing
the squashes to yellow and fail? Any Ideas? I feed it once a week...also LOADS of male flowers, but no female flowers now...was hoping for a bigger crop!

[ameno]

I only have 2 maturing squashes..the one i photographed has yellowed and fallen off. 2 more are developing nicely, but worried that something is causing
the squashes to yellow and fail? Any Ideas? I feed it once a week...also LOADS of male flowers, but no female flowers now...was hoping for a bigger crop!

Inadequate pollination. That's almost always the cause.
A squash has dozens of seeds inside, and each seed needs a separate grain of pollen to fertilise it. Once fertilised, the seed triggers the release of certain chemicals which make the fruit grow. A certain minimum number of seeds need to pollinate in order to make the fruit grow properly to maturity, but sometimes you'll find that enough seeds pollinate to make the fruit start swelling (so you end up thinking it pollinated), but then it stops and rots because in the end there weren't quite enough.
Hand pollination is the solution.

The only other thing which can make the fruits yellow and drop is water stress, but I find that in all but the driest conditions this only happens if the plant already has at least one maturing squash on it. Then if the plant isn't getting enough water, it will sometimes abort second and subsequent fruits.

If you're getting no female flowers at all then the cause is likely either low temperatures or lack of sufficient light.
If female flower buds are developing but then they turn yellow and drop off before they even open then the problem is water stress. The plant is aborting the flowers because it wouldn't be able to support the fruit.

[Plot70]

The turbans are still on the run with vines getting on for 20 feet long with some of the yellow ones as big as footballs.
The green ones are a little bit smaller.
I am pretty sure we are still going to get a few onions even though it looks like the vines are trying to harvest them early.

[ameno]

Mine are starting to succumb to powdery mildew now, although they are still putting on strong new growth.
Between the eight plants there are 12 very large squash.
I also have 5 plants in my garden, which so far have five squash developing (they are a large variety, but aren't that big yet).

I have noticed that Marina di Chioggia, which I've grown for a few years now, has excellent powdery mildew resistance. While the others are blasted with the stuff, they only have the occasional white spot, even when grown right next to the susceptible varieities.