Butternut Behaving Badly

During the process of moving home, we dropped a butternut.  Not thinking too much about it, we pick it up and carried it off to the new home.  A week later, when we cut the butternut open to cook it, we found that the seeds had started sprouting, so we decided to plant the sprouts in our new garden.  The only readily available spot was under a palm tree which they didn't seem to mind as they very quickly settled in and started to grow.

One week old seedling


We've never grown butternut before, so I had to do some research to find out more about the latest, unplanned addition to our garden.

Cucurbita moschata is from the Cucurbita genus of about 27 species and has squash, pumpkin and zucchini amoung its relatives and it originates from South America.   One plant can produce an average of 6-8 fruits.  This was a scary thought as we have 50 plants.  That's a lot of butternut! 

First fruit


  I got very excited when one month into their growth, I noticed the first fruit.  Everything was looking very promising and little did I know that I still had a lot to learn about my little treasures...

The flower above the fruit opened up and looked absolutely stunning.  The down side to these magnificent flowers is that it only lasts for one day.  So, I missed the photo opportunity on our very first flower because I thought it could wait until tomorrow.  Lesson learnt: whenever I see a flower that I want to photograph - do it now!  


Female flower







All was well until all three of the first fruits started rotting.  I couldn't figure out what was happening.  I thought my plants were happy and getting all that they needed.  The leaves were still looking healthy.  I couldn't find an answer in any book, so I just had to wait it out and see what would happen. 

Rotting fruit



Just days after noticing the first signs of rot, the plants produced more flowers.  But this time the flowers looked slightly different.  These were male flowers.  They had a single stamen and did not have a fruit beneath. 



Male flower





This morning I looked up the rotting problem and learnt that I am not the only gardener experiencing this.   For some unknown reason, the female flowers on my plants developed before the male ones.  The fruit rotted because pollination had not taken place.

Today, I noticed one lone female flower and seven males.  I manually assisted the pollination process by brushing pollen onto the stigma.  While I was doing this I noticed a bee hovering around my flowers so hopefully nature will take over now.  In future I'll have to plant my butternut close to plants that attract bees.

We'll now wait with fingers crossed and watch our fruit daily...