The cold start to the summer has meant that many people’s winter squashes are only now beginning to grow, and the plants are still very small for this time of year. The question is, is there enough time for them to form fruits and ripen? Well, hopefully, yes, although, we’re not convinced that it’s worth trying to grow a bumper crop. Instead, we’re going to be pruning our winter squashes once 2 or 3 fruits have formed, and reached golf ball size. This way we hope to concentrate the plant’s energy into growing those three fruits so that they can reach maturity over the next couple of months. The alternative is to simply leave the plants to grow as normal, creating more and more vines and forming as many fruits as they like, but we suspect that these plants will fail to produce ripened squashes before the end of the season.
We could stand corrected, so let us know how you get on at the end of the season!