In article ,
David Hill wrote:

Is the idea to leave them as long as possible up until the frost, or is
it just as well to take them inside now?

If the stem is still full of sap and the weather is dry, leave them.
Once the stem shrivels, they will gain nothing. They WILL ripen
further, even picked, if left in the sun (preferably indoors),
though the sun is rapidly weakening.

See if you can stick your thumb nail through the skin, if not they are
ripe, but if you can break the skin then they need more time to ripen

Unfortunately, what they need and what they will get are not well
correlated. I don't grow butternut, but grow crown prince, and have
just eaten a late-setting one (as a summer squash) because it was
definitely not going to ripen.

In the UK, Cucubita pepo is the only one that ripens even moderately
reliably. C. maxima (hubbards, crown prince etc.) does in some places
in most years, and C. moschata (butternut) is trickier still. The
others are pretty well hopeless, because we don't get enough autumn
daylight.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.