Squashes going mental

[Pies]

I've got seven squashes on my plot two of which are going absolutly mental

I've stopped the two plants trailing arms,although they keep trying to sprout new arms.

When fully unwound the portmarrion was approx 20ft from tip to tip, i had to bring it under control cos the butternut squash was feeling a little competitive and decided to go mad as well

Just got to see how many of the numerous fruits get to a decent size

[Alison]

They're looking good, way on from mine. When did you sow / plant out?

[StephenH]

Mine haven't even started flowering yet! I've got some buds, so should have some flowers soon.

[Pies]

They're looking good, way on from mine. When did you sow / plant out?

Started of in late April and planted out in mid May under a plastic cloche

[Kio]

My butternut squash are just about to start flowering, looks like there are a lot of flowers ready too so hopefully males and female. Not quite as big as yours but each one has two growing tips each out about 2ft, rest of the plant is like a bush. How many fruit are you supposed to leave on each one to grow? I've heard you're best limiting it to 2 but how do you know which will be the strongest to leave growing?

[Alison]

I never restrict the number of fruits as I think they do that themselves to some extent. However if you want really big fruits then I'd expect you're better restricting but you could maybe let them get to a healthy size before you cull too much to make sure they're growing OK, that way you could eat the immature fruits and leave the others on to fully cure for storage.

[di]

Like Alison,I never restrict fruit...I prefer lots of little ones to a couple of big...far easier when it comes to using them.
That said,I'm still ever so (im)patiently waiting for a lot of them to even flower

[matthew2riches]

I didn't plant any squash this year... I forgot

[di]

I didn't plant any squash this year... I forgot

If ours actually get around to producing fruit I'm sure we'd be able to spare you a couple

[jackyspratty]

I did 3 beds of squash this year (might have put too many in a bed though!)
The first ones I started early, potimarron for the seed saving circle. They started really well but then slowed quite a lot.The other two beds are really not moving at all!
Gave the all a good feed at the wekend and have had loads of rain today so hope that will give them a boost? The one in a pot in my front garden seems to be going well, fingers crossed.

It has side shots too that are flowering, didnt think to pinch them out, do you think I should have done?

[Pies]

Im not sure its realy necessary i've pinched my trailing arms because the plant was putting too much energy into growing and not enough into the fruits(imho).Im not after masses of fruits but i would like some quality fruits,so far my plant defo has seven fruits which are growing and are now about cricket ball size two of which are full grown now.

Overall im not sure pinching out is worth it but i know nothing, afterall this is my first year growing portmarrion squash

[salilah]

I'm also a newbie with potimarron - planted it under the french / runner beans! It made a bid for takeover, so I sent it up a couple of bamboo stakes over the "too big for composting" woodstack. It is now way past that, and making a bid for freedom over the fence to next door! Have tried turning it round to come back - but what an amazing plant! About 7 fruit so far - one rotted as not pollinated (I assume), watching the others and keeping fingers crossed... Very interesting - I'm more used to fairly static courgettes!
S