It is possible that lack of light could cause the lower production. Also, given your region, it might be lack of heat. Unless you have really poor soil, I wouldn't suspect that problem. And, no, I wouldn't trim the vines.

Do you see pollinators around the flowers? If not, that could indeed be a factor in low yield. Some parts of the country have a great scarcity of pollinators. If this is the case, then hand pollination would certainly be worth a try.

It is not too early for those squash to have ripened. I don't know this variety. But it is from the c. maxima family, and those squash often ripen fairly quickly. See if you can dent their skin with your finger nail. If you can, leave them on the vine until you can't. Once you can't dent the skin with your fingernail I'd say they are ripe. Days to maturity are almost always more of an estimate. Conditions affect this so much. So don't just go by DTM.

Can you camouflage your squash to protect them from being stolen? If I had that problem I'd probably lay a light layer of dried weeds over top of them, to obscure them from view.

Hope this helps!

George
Tahlequah, OK

Thanks for the advice. I imagine that it is probably sunlight. We do indeed have bees in the garden (they pollinate my cucumbers wonderfully), but maybe if I planted early there weren't many around when the female blossoms were there. I did do a little bit of hand pollination which might have helped me get one flower on track, but I am not sure. But probably it was environment; I just didn't see a lot of female flowers in general.

I'll probably just harvest the squash this weekend; I think the rinds are in fact pretty tough. I feel kind of sad that they are done so early, they are next to a chainlink fence that separates the garden from the street, and every other person who walks past the garden sees the squash hanging there (from a low trellis) and says something about it to me or each other. They had become a tourist attraction!