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Old 21-07-2020, 01:23 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening
David Hill David Hill is offline
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Default Butternut squash

On 21/07/2020 10:55, David Rance wrote:
On Tue, 21 Jul 2020 09:32:58 Nick Maclaren wrote:

In article ,
David RanceÂ* wrote:


This year I am growing squashes for the first time. They are producing
plenty of female flowers which are now opening, but there are no male
flowers with which to ..... er, fertilise (is that the right word?)
them. There are buds of male flowers but they never develop.

So, do squashes need to be fertilised in the same way as courgettes? I
do have some courgette plants alongside the squashes which *are*
producing a few male flowers. Can I fertilise the squashes from them?


Most squashes grown in the UK are Cucurbita pepo, as are courgettes,
so it should work.Â* Hubbards, Crown Prince etc. are C. maxima,
Butternut and Tromboncino d'Albenga are C. moschata, and probably
won't.


Thanks, Nick. The seeds from which I grew the plants were saved from a
squash I bought in Waitrose in January. The label doesn't say what
variety they are (apart from the label saying "Golden Butternut Squash"
which I suppose is a description rather than a variety!) but says they
were grown in Greece. Well, we'll have to see what happens. I don't
think the first female flower was pollinated properly as the fruit is
two inches long and hasn't grown for a week. Two later ones do seem to
be getting larger and are between three and four inches long. I don't
expect them to grow to the proportions of the original but anything will
be worth having.

(I've just remembered the correct word - "pollinate". Age is catching up
with me but I won't make that an excuse!)

David

Try hand polinating them, nothing to loose.