My Garden

Butternut Squash Disiaster

Last post 24-08-2008 3:35 PM by Ariadne. 14 replies.

• 17/08/2007 04:30 PM
  Midgepatch Location: Joined on: 17 Aug 2007 Posts: 1	Reply | Contact [color=#000000]Hello There, I am a novice squash grower. The plant is bursting out of its cold frame and is a healthy green but all the flowers keep dropping off before they get a chance to set fruit. What am I doing wrong?? [/color] [Edited on 17/08/2007]

• 18/08/2007 12:28 AM

  In reply to

  Lemon Location: Joined on: 20 May 2007 Posts: 39

  Reply | Contact Hi Midge I've not grown Butternut Squash before - but I've read that courgette flowers drop off when they haven't been suficiently fertilised. I assume its the same thing. You can let the bees pollinate or you can use a soft paintbrush to transfer pollen from the male flower to the female. male flowers tend to be on a long stem and the female flower has a small immature courgette growing behind the flower. Happy growing! (By the way, what Butternut Squash variety are you growing?)

• 18/08/2007 02:21 PM	In reply to
  midgiemeadows Location: Joined on: 18 Aug 2007 Posts: 1	Reply | Contact Mny thanks for the help. Just off to buy paintbrush! The plants were given to me so don't know the variety. will let you know if i find out. Thank you

• 19/08/2007 01:05 PM

  In reply to

  bogweevil Location: Joined on: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 2,043

  Reply | Contact As ever with cucurbits fruits only reliably set when the plants have reached a fair size and unless you have an unusually large coldframe your plant is perhaps just too small to sustain a crop. Feed well and try and let it get big. Female flowers will then stay on the plant. I never have any trouble at all with my squash and courgette plants once they get big, but the initial flowers are either all male or the female flowers present just don't 'stick'. I suppose I could try hand pollinating but why bother when it will all come right once the plants get big enough? Don't despair if your paintbrush is ineffective, all should come right in time. Once fruits have set, further fruit setting is inhibited which is why it is so important to pick over courgettes and cucumbers even if the fruits have to go striaght to pickle or freezer or even compost bin. There culd not be a fruit already swelling in the coldframe pehaps supressing further fruit? However once a crop of melon, pumpkin or winter squash fruits have set you generally let them swell and the plant ramble on. One it has rambled far enough another fruit may set. To help the process I generally bury the stems at intervals with a shovelful of soil. They root and this sustains the next flowers and fruit. This does mean the plot becomes very hard to navigate! But the whole lot will die off in Septober. In the meantime a fairly intensive fungicide programme is sometimes needed to hold off mildew. Boggy [Edited on 19/08/2007] Beware the bat-eared bogweevil

• 24/03/2008 07:14 PM	In reply to
  babaipe Location: Joined on: 24 Mar 2008 Posts: 1	Reply | Contact I'M LIVING IN SAN SALVADOR,EL SALVADOR,CA.,AND WOULD LIKE TO GROW BUTTERNUT SQUASH. COULD YOU PLEASE GIVE ME ANY INFO.ABOUT GROWING THEM?I HAVE NEVER DONE IT BEFORE. THANKS, BABAIPE

• 24/03/2008 07:43 PM	In reply to
  Phot's-Moll Location: The sunny South coast. Joined on: 06 Jan 2007 Posts: 3,347	Reply | Contact What's the weather like in your part of the world, babaipe? If there's no frost, then just stick the seed in the soil, water and stand back! Whether you think you can do a thing, or think you cannot, you are right.

• 29/07/2008 01:39 PM

  In reply to

  Dan S Location: East Sussex Joined on: 29 Jul 2008 Posts: 1

  Reply | Contact Hi, I'm having problems with my butternut squash plant as well! I've grown it in the greenhouse and it's a huge plant now, but doesn't seem to be producing any female flowers. It's the first time I've grown a butternut squash plant so I don't really know how to identify a female flower, but the only flowers I've seen have a thin stem with no sign of a bulge where the fruit would form. Do you think I've just got a dud plant, or is there something I can do? I'll try pollinating by hand and see if that does anything. Many thanks

• 30/07/2008 01:00 PM

  In reply to

  bogweevil Location: Joined on: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 2,043

  Reply | Contact I expect that your plant just needs to get a lot bigger, have plenty of water and so on - the practised eye would soon tell what is going on here.  The female flowers are unmistakeable with tiny fruits behind the flowers. My squashes are growing at a vast rate outdoors and mostly covered with fruits already, but some late cultivars won't set fruits until they get a bit bigger.   Boggy   Beware the bat-eared bogweevil

• 13/08/2008 10:03 AM	In reply to
  Gardeners Delight Location: Northamptonshire Joined on: 13 Aug 2008 Posts: 2	Reply | Contact Hello, I also seem to be having a problem with female flowers! I have 4 plants and have had to train them up canes as they are so enormous, there are plenty of male flowers but so far I've only spotted 1 female, is this normal for this time of year? They seem healthy enough and get plenty of water etc, would removing some of the male flowers encourage female growth? x

• 13/08/2008 11:02 AM	In reply to
  bogweevil Location: Joined on: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 2,043	Reply | Contact Yes it is normal particularly if you sowed or planted late, live in a cold district and if you are growing cultivars that are ill-adapted to the cool dark wet British summer. Removing male flowers might well help.  Define enormous - some cucurbits need to grow very large indeed before fruit is set.   Boggy Beware the bat-eared bogweevil

• 17/08/2008 07:55 PM

  In reply to

  Ariadne Location: Contemplating on the compost heap Joined on: 05 Apr 2008 Posts: 75

  Reply | Contact I also have 4 VAST butternuts, but they also have been slow to produce fruit. Plenty of flowers now but no sign of fruit as yet. Pumpkins on the other hand (Variety:"Hooligan") are going crackers! Lots of fruit there! I wondered if it had anything to do with the crazy weather (few pollinating insects when its been so dull?) or that I perhaps have got an unsuitable seed variety?  Sitting, spinning threads of stories & weaving the colourful strands of life.

• 18/08/2008 03:48 PM	In reply to
  KP Location: Harrow Joined on: 15 Aug 2008 Posts: 6	Reply | Contact thanks for the advice here, my plant is also fairly large and lots of flowers but no fruit - I'll try the hand pollination route and see if it progresses.

• 18/08/2008 07:45 PM

  In reply to

  realfood Location: Glasgow Joined on: 17 Aug 2008 Posts: 21

  Reply | Contact Sadly, Butternut squashes are much more difficult to get to fruit than the other winter squashes. This is because Butternuts have unfortunately been mostly derived from Cucurbita moschata, which prefers hotter summers than are routinely likely for much of the UK. Therefore, even though new varieties, specially bred for the UK climate, are becoming available, it is still extremely difficult to grow mature, hardened-off butternuts if you are outside the South of the UK. This year I am doing a trial of growing the UK bred Butternuts in Glasgow, a very difficult location, epecially during this cool, wet Summer! For the ones grown outside with no protection, no Butternuts have set. For the ones grown under a Lidle cloche, each plant is now carrying several Butternuts.

• 20/08/2008 08:33 AM	In reply to
  bogweevil Location: Joined on: 02 Mar 2004 Posts: 2,043	Reply | Contact Actually I have found butternuts to be one of the easiest squash to grow and the blue fruited ones the hardest. I once gave a talk on growing squash and pumpkin at Ayr flower show and was nearly lynched, not realising the difficulty of growing these crops north of the M4.   Boggy Beware the bat-eared bogweevil

• 24/08/2008 03:35 PM

  In reply to

  Ariadne Location: Contemplating on the compost heap Joined on: 05 Apr 2008 Posts: 75

  Reply | Contact Wonder of wonders, I have found 4 not very big butternuts lurking under the masses of foliage! Given the view that "north of Watford" cultivation is more than a little dire, I'm quite chuffed. I accept that they are unlikely to provide much of a meal, but I am still rather pleased to have got the little babies the plants have managed to produce!!!   Thank heavens for Pumpkins! Sitting, spinning threads of stories & weaving the colourful strands of life.