Question about growing Bottle Gourds & yellow summer squash.?

My squash & gourds are basically doing the same thing, they have started to bloom & produce fruit, once the fruit is big enough for me to acknowledge its existence its gone! All of them begin to shrivel & just die off. My dad suggested epsom salt & less water, I trust him because he has been a southern farmer for quite sometime. I was just wondering if there was another solution to this problem?