Best methods for successful butternut harvest

[Yasminh14]

Hi all, I've always grown summer squash, but only tried winter squash last year for the first time, but without great success as couldn't plant early enough. Also, I found that on the couple of plants that I did manage to get going, most of the fruit yellowed, shrivelled and fell off before it was more than a couple of inches long. I only managed to get 2 very small squashes from each of my Hunter squash plants. I'm not sure if I should have limited the number of fruit so that the plant didn't use up its energy constantly producing more?

This year I have just one Hunter plant and 4 Waltham. The latter were planted a bit later and are just getting going now, but the Hunter is growing several inches every day and throwing new shoots out in all directions. The blurb says it should produce 7-8 fruit of around 1kg each, but I don't want to make any mistakes and end up with only 1 or 2 again. It now has several small fruit appearing, but should I pinch out any of the extra shoots and/or fruit to limit its growth and concentrate on getting a few good ones? How do other people manage their butternut squash plants?

Incidentally, they are growing on the ground as I don't have any trellis.

[sparrow100]

The ones that fell off previously sound like they weren't pollinated. Can you give any of the new fruits a hand with a male flower from another squash or a courgette? (as long as you aren't saving the seeds this should be fine) I think the blurbs on the packet are always stating optimum yields rather than the slightly poorer yields we/I get. I have 3 Walthams doing their thing painfully slowly, but lots of others (potimarron, tonda padana, queensland blue, crown prince, thelma sanders, black futsu, muscat de provence, rouge vif d'etamps...) also now flowering.

I'd say definitely don't pinch anything out until the fruit have set, ie are clearly pollinated and are swelling. Then you might want to think about pinching out those shoots, depending on how late in the year it is and what chance there is of other mini-fruits having the time before the frosts to turn into fruit.

To be honest I usually leave them to it, and only pinch out shoots in early September when I know there isn't enough time left where I am for new tiny fruits to mature under a cloche to a big enough size to then ripen a bit indoors.

[kathyd]

I grew Waltham last year, all running around on the ground (vigorously), and got maybe 3-5 butternuts off each. I didn't weigh them, but they varied from 'quite small' to 'quite a good size'! I didn't pinch them out, but I did put something underneath the ripening fruits to stop them going smushy on the soil. I didn't on the gravel (yes, they took over the paths too), and they ended up with small damaged areas on the skins where the gravel had dug in, which I assume could affect their storage ability. The squashes under cover in the tunnel grew slightly bigger and ripened slightly sooner than those outside, but there wasn't much in it. Towards the end of the summer, I removed some of the leaves which were covering some of the squashes to allow maximum sunshine to them to ripen them. I found it a good variety to grow, and it generally stored well. I'm growing a couple this year too, along with some Hawk F1 to try - they promise to mature a bit quicker (good if the summer's not brilliant!), but give slightly smaller fruits. We shall see! I do think that some people pinch out the growing tips though once the plants have enough fruits on them, and especially if the weather is looking dodgy at the end of the season. Maybe you could experiment, and pinch out one or two and leave the others? And let us know the results, obviously

[lottie dolly]

I just leave mine to it,any not ripe when the foliage dies down at the end of the season,will ripped on their own if placed near a window in the dry,i have found some start to go mouldy around the necks or damaged area,simply prepare as you wish to use it and freeze,no part cooking needed,it freezes very well,used the last of mine last night,as other have said,all squash fruit drop of if not pollinated,

[Yasminh14]

Thanks all for your replies, very useful. Because it had never happened to me with courgettes, it never occured to me that pollination (or not it would seem) could be the cause of the fruit dropping off! Funnily enough I've had a couple of shrivelled courgettes this summer too, but again thought it was just because there was too much fruit on the plant. Didn't really bother me as I have several courgette plants, more than enough to feed 2 of us. But as I really do want plenty of squash to store, I will keep an eye out and hand pollinate to be on the safe side, and only pinch out shoots when enough fruit have set. We have plenty of bees here, but they seem to be far more interested in the raspberries at the moment!