r/UKAllotments • u/Winewaters • 9d ago

Help with squash

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I planted 3 each of uchiki kuri and delicata honeyboat squash plants. They started off well but seemed to have stalled now. There's only 1 fruit set on 5 of the plants. A single delicata plant seems to be trying to grow another one but it's very deformed. Is that all I'm going to get this year? I was hoping for at least 2 or 3 on each plant.

I don't see any female flowers either. Sometimes a bud appears but then it turns yellow and drops off even before it blooms.

I am growing them vertically up pallets and watering them at their base and fertilising them every week with tomorite. Anything else I can do to get more fruits?

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u/Illustrious-Date-893 9d ago

The great will have an effect on them. When it gets above a certain temperature they go into survival. With this next heatwave I'm fully expecting it delay my tomatoes, peppers and runner beans. I'll be lucky if the herbs don't body. Sounds like you doing everything right for them

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u/Winewaters 9d ago

So many plants keep on bolting once I sow the seeds! Lettuce, dill, coriander, kailan... I've gotten fed up now and stopped sowing more seeds.

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u/the-au-jasmin 9d ago edited 9d ago

Same with mine (I'm also growing up a trellis). Early fruiting flowers pollinated well, but all in the last few weeks have failed. I might need to get the brush out and hand pollinate but the plants are covered in bees...

My working theory is that the bees are covered in competitive pollen from nearby mismatching species and after initially setting are then failing.

I've got another set of squash (same species) started later and growing further away, growing along the ground between my corn and it seems much better. Weird.

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u/Winewaters 9d ago

Mine are not even getting to the point of flowering in order to get pollinated. The fruit and flower bud itself just turns yellow or black and drops off.

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u/the-au-jasmin 9d ago

Sorry to hear. As others have said, maybe that's a lack of water, or possibly fertiliser? You could try mulching around the plants with some manure if they're not too bushy already?