How are everyone's squashes doing?

[Plot70]

I have seen no mildew yet.
I have been told off for growing too many marrows and there are more forming rapidly.
Turban squashes are ripening nicely and I will for sure get told off for too many of them later in the year when they are fully ripe.

[bikermike]

Got some pumpkins forming, and some open-pollinated butternut squash - some look like butternut squash, some look elongated and interesting. (obviously, we'll test them for bitterness before eating them).

We may have got over the courgette madness now, and we are eating them faster than they grow. No more 2kg surprises...

Mike

[ameno]

Picked two squash today.

One, a Pink Banana, was definitely ripe (it was the first to pollinate, back in early June), although I shall leave it to mature for about a month before eating it.

The other, a Galeux d'Eysines, was "picked" accidentally. I tried to gently lift it in order to place a tile underneath it so it didn't rot, but it rolled over and snapped off from the plant.
It was fully grown and beginning to ripen (the skin had already mostly changed colour, and it had developed its characteristic warts), so hopefully it should ripen the rest of the way in my conservatory.

The Pink Banana was 2.6kg (quite light for its size; I suspect it has a rather large seed cavity), and the Galeux was a weighty 5.5kg.

[NannyGreen]

Still hacking back the Crown Prince who are aiming for world domination via the greenhouse. Don't pick my squashes yet as they have to last me through the winter, a lovely reminder of sunshine in January What sunshine do I hear you say?

One thing I miss is carving my grandsons' names on the courgettes, not so magical just having them all say Nanny

[ameno]

I don't usually pick mine this early, either, but the one that was actually ripe (and that I actually intended to pick) had pollinated really early in the year and the plant it's on was actually starting to die off, so I thought I may as well.

[NannyGreen]

Always better to be safe than sorry ameno, a squash in the hand and all that

[Bonjour]

My 3 Crown Prince plants have gone beserk and annexed most of the potato patch next to their bed, making it difficult to dig spuds as needed. There are 12 good-sized squash, 11 of which have ripe looking blue coloration, the 12th is still yellowish. Several smaller ones have rotted off at about grapefruit size over the past weeks. The plants themselves are looking tired now. I'm in two minds whether to pick the ripe looking ones now or leave it until the vines die back.

[ameno]

My 3 Crown Prince plants have gone beserk and annexed most of the potato patch next to their bed, making it difficult to dig spuds as needed. There are 12 good-sized squash, 11 of which have ripe looking blue coloration, the 12th is still yellowish. Several smaller ones have rotted off at about grapefruit size over the past weeks. The plants themselves are looking tired now. I'm in two minds whether to pick the ripe looking ones now or leave it until the vines die back.

What colour are the stalks of each fruit? The fruit are fully ripe when the stem is fully pale brown and corky in texture. If there is any green or yellow left in the stem, it is not quite ripe.
Mostly ripe fruits will ripen further off the plant, but they always taste better and keep better when allowed to ripen fully on the plant.

[Plot70]

Mine have managed to produce enough fruit to hold them down while we endure yet another second hand Trump hurricane.
The marrows have stacked up on two of four plants.
The turbans have produced 30 foot vines and are heading for the vehicle track round the end of a row of dahlias I saved.
I have already had about 15 marrows.
I have had 3 or 4 buckets of rubbish out of the soil I am cleaning up for next years parsnips. The vines had to be steered over the cleaned soil so that I could carry on.
I have even got 4 butternuts to set. They took a long time to flower.
I have had about 10 gherkins in the little greenhouse.

[SimpleSimon]

Final count up yesterday after a few failures despite promising starts..

22 butternuts - some absolute monsters but mostly small/medium size. These seemed to just get on with it without any hand polonation. Never had much luck before. Prolific this year for some reason.

4 crown prince. Nice size but not great as I have 3 plants.

6 blue Hubbards - all 6 absolutely massive and looking great.

6 marina de chioggia - all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes. All 6 are pretty big too. Really looking forward to these.

16 uri kuri - mostly ripe but pretty small on the whole. They look pretty though.

Squash soup all round it seems. Way too many for us but we have a really big plot and I do love growing squash. Even just as a ground covering for areas we may not use that year.

Now I have plenty of fruit ripening is it time to cut the growing shoots off the plants? And perhaps exposing the ripening fruit to a bit more sun (if we get any)?

[ameno]

Cutting off any leaves covering the fruits so they get more sun is a good idea, but don't remove growing shoots from the plants. Leave them be. The plant needs those extra leaves to provide sugars to the fruit, as this time of year the old leaves start dying off (especially if they succumb to mildew), so they need new leaves to replace them.

[SimpleSimon]

Cool thanks. To be fair the growing shoots have slowed down and they aren't really getting in the way as I've now cleared most of the adjacent beds anyway. Defo will be my best squash harvest this year. And my experiment to plant 6 plants straight into fresh manure/straw (and I mean steaming fresh) hasn't seemed to have done any harm. Looking at the manure now it's rapidly rotted in the bed and is starting to resemble a nice compost. So double win.

[Bonjour]

What colour are the stalks of each fruit? The fruit are fully ripe when the stem is fully pale brown and corky in texture. If there is any green or yellow left in the stem, it is not quite ripe.
Mostly ripe fruits will ripen further off the plant, but they always taste better and keep better when allowed to ripen fully on the plant.

Stalks are starting to brown but not fully yet. The vines are looking very tired and a lot of leaves are dying off, so I don't think it will be long before it's time to pick them. I counted again this evening. There are 13 very decent-sized squash, including the one that was still yellowish but is now blue like the others. Not a bad result from 3 plants.

[ameno]

Stalks are starting to brown but not fully yet. The vines are looking very tired and a lot of leaves are dying off, so I don't think it will be long before it's time to pick them. I counted again this evening. There are 13 very decent-sized squash, including the one that was still yellowish but is now blue like the others. Not a bad result from 3 plants.

There's no harm in just leaving them until the vines die off completely, as long as you get them in before the first frost.
You don't need to be in too much hurry to eat them, either. They should keep until at least February, and the flavour usually improves with storage.

[Plot70]

My marrows have been producing half a dozen fruits on each of two plants on the south facing end of my raised bed containing a couch grass pickling clamp. The roots appear to have slumped onto the rotted couch grass roots and produced a second flush of growth and marrows all stacked up on two short vines from the original single plant. The photos are back in post#83.