Squash questions ..

[Cr071]

Planning on planting out squash and pumpkin today ..

How far apart should the squash be? I've lost the packet so not sure of what variety it is now !

Will they need cloche protection at first?

Also I read that pumpkin should be planted 2m apart but also read somewhere about planting in a triangle 50cm apart?! They are the jack of all trades variety. I was hoping to just get a few big pumpkins for Halloween - I've gone abit OTT and have about 4 plants but would one be enough to grow 2 large pumpkin? (I need a bigger allotment!!)

Thankyou for any help


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[Thelma Sanders]

I grew 2 in a 2m square bed last year and got 2 pumpkins - one on each. The ground in that bit hasn't been improved though, and they just got fed when I remembered............

Perhaps yours will do better

[Stan79]

Depends on the variety of squash. I grew my Spaghetti Squash up the same frame as my beans last year so it climbed it's way up. The patty pan squash grew on the ground. If you've got a ground variety i would give them 120cm centres as mine grew to about 60cm wide last year.

My pumpkin plants grew one big pumpkin each. They didn't get fed or watered that much and both probably would have grown another but i think the plant rejected them as they weren't feeling loved enough!

[pigletwillie]

If you feed them well you can grow them right next to each other. The roots aren't the issue its how far they trail. I grow mine up a greek style loggia in the garden and manage to plant more than I should be able to by utilising the "second floor" of the garden.

[Cr071]

Thank you, I went with the 120cm spacing, not sure whether to cloche or not but for now I've left them to the elements!


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[Two_Sheds]

I grow all my squash (summer, winter, courgette, pumpkin .. they're all squashes) one metre apart. The sprawlers go where they will, it doesn't matter to me

[Ja9]

Mine are roughly that distance too,but gets tighter as you start to wonder how to squeeze everything in, mine just spill and sprawl over the edges of the raised beds

[george356]

Sorry to hi-jack the thread but I sowed a Butternut Squash earlier in the year and I don't know if that is what has germinated and grown on

The variety is "Hawk F1" - seeds of which are regularly given away with gardening magazines, which is why I hope someone can help identify the flowers. Those on my plant are an orange/red with a yellow centre - to be honest it looks like a Mimulus (flowers similar to this)

Now, unless I have a cuckoo in the nest I never sowed Mimulus
So, my question - what colour flowers are yours?

Thanks

Now identified - it IS a Mimulus - dunno how it got there as Squash Hawk was the only seed I sowed in the pot!