Butternut Squash 2nd year with same problem!!

[wistow-wizard]

Planted seed early in pots and kept indoors. Healthy growth to 6inches high and then started putting outside for a week in late April to harden.
Dug farmyard manure compost into trench and planted out in sheltered garden in early May.
Plants deteriorated from bushy green to thin sick yellowing plants.
I now have a few flowers which have been pollinated and I have small squash but still on sickly plants.
This year I put three other plants into another part of the garden, straight into soil and same results, so not soil or location.
Two years ago plants went into grow bags and grew brilliantly.

Any butternut wizards got any words of advice!!!

[realfood]

You do not say where you are, but I would have thought that planting out in early May without cloche protection, was too early for Butternuts. They hate cold. Conventional winter squash are much easier.

[wistow-wizard]

I am based in Peterborough, not balmy south but not scotland. I had planted out in May two years ago in grow bags against a wall, might have been the difference. Soil may not have been warm enough. I have put another set of seeds in, fingers crossed!!