Butternut Squash... HELP

Regular readers will remember last years pathetic butternut squash and this years attempt at providing a rich bed in which to plant them.

Well!!! they appear to have grown... This was the site last Monday when we returned from the UK.

This morning I made an attempt to untangle the five plants which were overrunning everywhere!

And we actually have several butternuts on them, this being the largest. The seeds came from a butternut we bought to make some soup in the winter.

The HELP we require is "What do we now do with these runners?  Some of them are 2 metres in length and each plant has more than one!!! We have looked at t'internet but have not found any answers. Does this mean we just leave them to grow longer?

The bed was made for six plants but we only ended up with five, in the sixth space we planted a crookneck Courgette which has also gone mad...

The 'Bed' has definitely been a success but perhaps in hindsight overplanted.

THE Bed!

Regular readers may remember my failed attempt to grow Butternut Squash last year. One of our problems in growing anything, is that the large poplar trees surrounding the garden suck all the goodness out of the soil. We are forever digging up roots in the potager... Those trees will have to go...

In order to prove this I have created a special bed... It was going to be a raised bed, but as that meant buying timber, instead I dug a hole...

It was then lined with some strong visqueen and into this went a good layer of leaf mould covered with a layer of soil. Yes, I did put some small holes through for drainage...

This was then covered with a good layer of our home produced compost together with a little general purpose fertiliser...

Then the secret ingredient... "Chicken Sh1t"

Then more soil...

and with a top dressing and a little more general purpose fertiliser... It finally looks like this...

The chicken whisperer 'Elizabeth' has been training the chickens to do more 'secret ingredient' between the posts... Not a lot of success though!!

It will be planted with a more squash and perhaps some other test veggies... Watch this space!