Kitchen Garden Forum

Have I let my butternut squash get too leafy?

Mine are all dying off now, with ripe fruits.

I do cut leaves off from around near full size fruit to give them a bit of sun, but find at this time the plant mostly naturally aborts any that are too small to ripen & I assist it by cutting off any like in your pic. Have you not got any proper fruits under that mass of leaves? Just asking as the plant is doing it's thing (which is reproducing) so I would expect proper fruit is under it which you will notice soon as will get natural leaf drying. If none then maybe a pollination issue as it was a bit dodgy down here early season with day/night temp fluctuations & way too much rain?

This problem could be due to excess moisture. The leaves, with an abundant amount of water, grew large and under them the soil dries out poorly, since neither the sun falls on it, nor there is normal air circulation. Try thinning the leaves so that the ground beneath them breathes and evaporates normally.

Out on Pumpkin Hill my plants finally got going in about mid-summer and have put out an amazing amount of greenery. As Kayburton mentions, I went at mine with a pair of shears at the end of August as I had plenty of fruits on the plants - about 9 pumpkins and the same number of good sized butternuts from 2 plants of each variety. I lopped off the ends of all trailing bits without decent sized fruits on them and also took away most of the foliage from around the fruits to give them plenty of sunshine for ripening up. To be honest, you'd be hard pressed to know that I had thinned them out as the plants are still putting out side shoots with gusto (there are even some Brucy-bonus fruits that may or may not have time to ripen) even though the older leaves are now looking very mildewed. The mature fruits have done well and I've been taking them off the plants as soon as they were ready and putting them into the cold greenhouse to cure.

Thank you all, we have had so much success in the past that this year the amount of leafy growth surprised us. Much more than previous years.

Ah well every year is different!