Problem with Squash setting fruit

Hi everyone,

It's my first season gardening and it's been great so far. I've had a problem with the Hokkaido squash I've grown.

I've planted three squash, and I've trained them grow over the grass. Two are planted right on the edge of the patch and one has about 1.5 metres of growth over soil with the remainder over the grass.

In the picture below I've got a yellow crookneck growing in the middle with the dark green leaves. To the left are the two squash planted on the edge of the patch and to the right is the third plant further back. This is an old picture from early in the season hense the lack of flowers.




To be honest I'm happy with the 4 or so fruit that have set, since I honestly didn't expect to be succesfull with this method. I hand pollinated a lot of fruit and initially things looked good. In total I had about 12 pollinated flowers with the first 4 begining to swell while the others grew a little and then slowed down. During this time the plants began aborting new unbloomed flowers that were forming. 2-3 weeks later the stunted fruit started to go soft, brown spots formed over them and they fell off. Only those 4 have remained.

Since I'm new I intially assumed that each plant produced one squash but I've heard that they should produce more than that somewhere in the region of 3 or more each.

I have some ideas as to why this has happened.

1. Overcrowding - the garden is a lot more crowded than in the picture now, with the crookneck shading out some of the squash leaves.

2. Growing them over grass didn't allow plants to set roots in the soil reducing water/nutrient uptake cuasing it to abort.

3. Watering/Nutrition - though I highly doubt it since I always water well and only once or twice have the plants wilted on me when they were young and I planted each plant in a bucket of compost and foliar spray ever other week with seaweed.

Sorry for the rambling post but I thought I'd better be precise. I'm just curious and would like to do things better next season but again I'm very happy with the fruit I have - they look great!

Jay

 

I have tried spaghetti squash this year, not a one set.

 

First of all, I'm not an expert squash grower and this year looks a poor year overall for me. My summer squash failed this year but winter squash have several small developing squash on.

It seems that if you leave them to their own devices they send out long runners with lots of flowers on and some set but then often rot. What I've found improves setting is if you let a small number of flowers occur and then 1 or 2 set small fruits, then stop further growth by 'stopping' the end. I'm guessing it puts more energy into existing growth and often the remaining few flowers will also set. I always aim to get 3-4 per plant.

p.s. Can't view your photos so I'm guessing a bit but sounds like you are doing well already given the poor squash weather.

GG

 

I grow my squash upright instead of across the ground. Last year's plant was like a triffid and seemed to grow by the day, growing as high as the garage. I had lots of flowers on it but then heavy winds took most of them off. I think I got 3 x squash off it. This year I am again growing squash (butternut and patty pan) up a wooden tripod frame. I have lots of flowers but as yet no baby squash.

 

I have these growing - not a clue how as I thought I'd planted pumpkin Theres a few coming up on the 3 plants that I have.

Remind me to double check seed packets in future!!