- In June: healthy plant, transplanted with minimal stress, very nice weather, no pest issues. Optimal sunlight this time of year. It's growing up a NE fence.
- July: first 2 female flowers turned black and fell off. This was long before flowering, so it's not a pollination issue. The 3rd flower took and I now have a nice squash that I'll cut off whenever the stem turns brown. I like to think I watered and fertilized evenly; the plant never wilted in the sun and looked otherwise healthy. Still awesome weather, only one heat wave, one weekend of heavy rains from which everything seemed to recover.
- late July/early Aug: subsequent female flowers all aborted the same way.
- late Aug: all of the sudden, I've got three more little squash on the way! They're the size of pears right now. The plant is dying off at the base, though. It also has mild downy mildew that I've been fighting back with milk spray.
My average last frost date is 6 weeks away. Basic question #2: What are my odds of getting more squash from the three latecomers? I'm going to let it keep growing anyway, since I can't use that space in the soil. It doesn't get enough light this time of year to be useful. OTOH, the new growth on the squash is at the top of my fence and it has sun all day.
Basic question #3: Should I prune the new vine growth to encourage fruit development? Does that actually work? Or do folks usually just prune to save space? I have no problem with letting it continue to grow along the fence. When in doubt, I usually lean toward the LITHA principle: "leave it the heck alone."
TIA!
