Flowers on squash and pumpkins

[Chode]

Hi Charles

I am a big fan of the site, and your books and am slowly converting my allotment to no dig principles. I have been advised that I should cut the male flowers off my squash, pumpkins, watermelon and aubergines, to allow the fruit to swell and enlarge.
Since I did this, I noticed that quite a few of my squash dropped the fruit they were developing – this of course may be an entire coincidence, and they would have dropped them anyway, but I wondered what your thoughts were on this practice?
Thanks
Chode

[charles]

 Hello Chode, nice that you like the site and books and good luck with no dig.

That is strange advice about removing male flowers because once fruits have been pollinated, the viable seed inside them is the main reason they want to grow and be tasty! So I wouldn’t do it again.

Sometimes. especially at this time of year when time is running out and squash plants have fruit already maturing, they automatically allow new fruit to rot, so as to concentrate on what is already there, in the time available. Plants are clever and one part of gardening is knowing how little to interfere with them,. A case in point for me is sweet potato which i have not grown before and I am unsure how much or whether to prune its trailing stems which are fifteen feet long in my greenhouse!

[Chode]

Thanks for the advice Charles,
I am trying sweet potato for the first time this year, and following the advice slip that came from Suttons seeds. A friend on my allotment site of Afro-Carribean origin tells me that I need to let the trailing stems root into soil, as that is where the new tubers form; she says that it doesn’t produce new tubers underneath like a regular potato. This advice differs from the Suttons advice leaflet, so I don’t quite know who to believe! I put the trailing stems into a fresh bag of compost in the greenhouse – time will tell if anything comes of it! I was interested to see that your sweet poatoes flowered – there was no sign of any flowers on mine!
Chode

[charles]

 Interesting indeed, we shouldn’t have too long to wait to find out! I really thought the roots cluster down below the central stem, from what I saw on a website, where they discussed whether to prune stems and found that yields are highest where they are unpruned.

Sweet potato is related to morning glory (hence flowers I guess) and… bindweed. If only it was equally persistent.

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