growing butternut squash

[Brengirl]

Many thanks for tips. One year I supported it up the garage wall with good results maybe I should do that again.

[Skotch]

46 butternut squash from 10 plants and some of these were industrial sized, no faffing about grown in a block, rootball marked with canes, watered early on then left to it, if it gets really dry aim the hosepipe at the canes.

What variety were they?

[chriscross1966]

Try Hunter or a similar bred for British climate variety..... Spray with one part milk in ten parts water, generally clears powdery mildew..... Try a better squash if you're further north though...Winter Festival is very early and gives a decent crop of sensibly sized fruits.... of course I'm going to grow Lunga Gigante di Napoli and see if I can pass it off at a local show as a butternut next year...the giveaway might be the size, from memory you don't get 25lb+ butternuts .....

chrisc

[PAULW]

SKOTCH
Cobnut,Hunter,Avalon and pumpkin Becky that didn't do very well at all 5 fruit from 4 plants.

[Pumpkin Becki]

SKOTCH
pumpkin Becky that didn't do very well at all 5 fruit from 4 plants.

**hangs head** I'm sorry, I'll try harder next year, promise.

[Edwardo82]

I tried Dumpling Squash this year and pretty much left them to it got about 15 fruits from 2 plants. My Butternut squash on the other hand was not so successful, only producing about 5 fruits from the one plant, but very tasty all the same.

Cheers for the tip about 1 part milk and 10 parts water Chris, I will definitely give this method ago next year if PM strikes again. Big lesson from this year with squash is less plants and more generous spacing.

Cheers for all the advice Vines!

[BarleySugar]

I had 3 plants from the Dig It seeds, 2 of which gave round squash, the other managed 1 butternut. The ones that came up from the fermented bokashi under the beans gave me another 4 squash, and the other 4 came from the 2 plants from the Wilko seeds, no named variety. The largest was from the self sown ones, it weighs in at 1.5kg, and looked a definite butternut shape. We haven't eaten that one yet. There are still two at the allotment garden on the self sown vines, as they were very late growing, and I've left them out a bit longer to take their chance.
It's the first year I've grown them, so I'm very pleased, especially as I hadn't even any flowers until the beginning of August.

[SMT]

First time growing butternut squash this year and I suppose I had mixed success. Planted 3 'Cobnut' and recieved 3 very very small fruits, plus a huge butternut. Thought I'd left it too long as it was orange then verging on the green side. It weighed in at 2.8kg (just over 6lb). It will feed us for ages, lol. It only had a tiny seed cavity aswell. Unfortunately, there were no viable seeds inside though!

Anyway it hasnt put me off trying them again next year.

[sarraceniac]

I had no problems with my first attempt, this year, at BNS. No mildew, no fruits dropping, lovely luscious leaf growth, and not a single fruit. Maybe that is a problem . Will try again next year just for the foliage but plant them in my, deliberate, jungly area where it won't matter (much) if I don't get any fruit. The leaves will look very exotic.

[Brengirl]

Lol. Has anyone tried culinary presenting the leaves...pmsl

[Duronal]

i had 4 plants grown in between my cabbages. They were planted in a generous clump of compost under membrane. 6 large fruits later and i'm very happy, maybe the membrane has helped the roots stay moist and warm? Who knows?

[BarleySugar]

How did the cabbages do? It sounds a good idea if you can double up like this, but I was wondering about keeping the cabbage white off the cabbage and if the squash leaves shaded them too much.

[maytreefrannie]

I grew 5 butternut squash plants - loads of foliage, 3 fruits, 2 just fell off at marble size, 1 remaining squash is about the size of a small pear.

Still, I guess I don't learn from experience, because I'm fully intending to try again next year.

[gardendancer]

I had 1 plant who grew 8 squashes to maturity that weighed in at 12 kilos worth fo squash. It was a bit of an accident - i was going to limit it to 6 on the plant on advice form here, but 2 were on an arm that had hidden itself amongst some other veg.

It was planted on the edge of the bed and rambled freely and conveniently on the concrete patio. The first 1/2 dousen or so fruit fell off, so i was quite despairing to start iwth.

this was ofcourse complete beginners luck, as i had no idea what i was doing, having never grown it before and bought the plant on a whim at at trip to the gardening centre

[Noodles]

I had 4 plants. They went in a bit late (as we only got the allotment in May) but we still got 6 decent squash from them. There were lots more coming so I think we would have had double that if we'd got them in earlier.

They were just saved seeds from a Tesco butternut.