I am growing winter squash for the second time this year. I have a smallish garden so only have room for three plants. I thought I would try three different varieties to see which works best and have chosen Bon Bon, Marina di Chioggia and Black Futsu. They are big healthy vines but the issue I've had both this year and last year is that the plants form one fruit and then stop - after that they produce lots of male flowers but any female flowers simply drop off.
I know from growing courgettes and summer squash that if you keep picking the plants keep producing, but I've read that you're not supposed to harvest winter squash until the very end of the season once the foliage starts to die back. However, as an experiment I removed the single fruit from one of my three plants. That was a week ago and the plant has burst back into life and is now creating new female flowers. I'm now wondering if I should remove the fruits from the other plants too, in the hope of getting them to produce more? Or is there something else I should be doing? They are planted in a raised bed that was enriched with worm compost and I feed them once a week with a high potash feed. The soil does tend to dry out and I wonder if I should have been watering more?
I know from growing courgettes and summer squash that if you keep picking the plants keep producing, but I've read that you're not supposed to harvest winter squash until the very end of the season once the foliage starts to die back. However, as an experiment I removed the single fruit from one of my three plants. That was a week ago and the plant has burst back into life and is now creating new female flowers. I'm now wondering if I should remove the fruits from the other plants too, in the hope of getting them to produce more? Or is there something else I should be doing? They are planted in a raised bed that was enriched with worm compost and I feed them once a week with a high potash feed. The soil does tend to dry out and I wonder if I should have been watering more?
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