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Vegetable Gardening

Too Late for Squash? No Female Flowers as of 7/31

13 years ago

So its July 31, and my squash plant is still only producing male flowers.

The plant is grown in a container, and has one vine trellissed about 5 feet in one direction, and another vine five feet in another. I'm afraid I made the mistake of not feeding the plant enough fertilizer, as for about two weeks the plant slowed its growth and older leaves yellowed and died. The pot didnt have any nutrients left. Anyway, I've since fixed the problem.

MY QUESTION: if there are no female flowers as of July 31, am I too late for a viable squash? I would guess first killing frost in Boston is about November 1. Any thoughts?

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Comments (5)

ferretbee
13 years ago
If it's a Summer Squash, you should have plenty of time.
gardendawgie
13 years ago
If it was my garden I would tear out the plant and start over with something else. Squash need to get off to a fast start because they are already being hit by dead leaves and molds. Pretty soon many squash plants will be dead long before Nov 1.

Next year start your squash indoors as early as possible.
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I just checked and today it's just the opposite. I have about a dozen male flowers open and only two female flowers open. I cut a male flower off and cut away the petal part and used it to pollenate the two females. You can see the orange colored pollen laying in the bottom of the male flower. I did this two days ago and see one zuke about six inches long has formed already. I see many ants inside the flowers, what are they after, the pollen or the nectar? I also saw one lone bee go inside one of the flowers but it apparently died right before my eyes as it just sat there immobilized. I saw a dead bee inside one of my asian pear flowers a month or so ago too. I wonder whats killing them. I don't use any pesticides so it isn't me.
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It's normal for males to dominate before females start to bloom. Even then you will see pretty much one female to every ten males. To the poster who thinks his male flowers are dying off: all pumpkin flowers bloom for only a few hours every morning before they die off. As for not cutting the male flowers, I disagree. I've been growing pumpkins going on ten years now and if there are no female flowers to pollinate, then I will cut the male flowers just before they start to shrivel. I've yet to get a diseased plant doing this. I cut the male flowers because they are delicious to eat. So if you don't get pumpkins, you can enjoy cooking and eating the male flowers throughout the growing season. I cut off the stem, gently rinse them under cold water and saute them after dredging through a thin whole-wheat pancake batter - yum! BTW. I should mention that pumpkins are very difficult to hand pollinate. You'r e better off putting out bee loving flowers early in the season in order to get your location established on the honey bees routes. Ants do a pretty good job also, so if you see ants around your pumpkin vines, then do not try to exterminate them. If you do want to hand pollinate, then use a very soft artists brush and lightly stroke the pistol of a male plant (you should not see tons of pollen - in this case a little is too much), then lightly stroke the stamen of the female plant (again a little is too much). Even then you are not likely to succeed with hand pollination.
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Thank so much for your reply. It is very helpful. Yes, I realize I have been obsessing over the past week or so about every tiny abnormality. Have probably read too many posts. :) re the baby female, I have learned a ton about squash this past week. Learning about males and females and pollination has been great ... but strangely I just feel somewhat sad to see so many females dying off and feel the need to figure out why. Ortherwise i have been having a great time gardening. So has my daughter and husband. We love learning about all of the detailsWe intend on building three more beds and a circle garden this fall.
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I read of another possibility a couple of days ago and tried to add a post but was having some kind of computer problem and could not--and now I cannot remember where I found the info! But it suggested that the plant may exhibit the symptoms we are seeing when there are temperature extremes, and here in central OH we have been experiencing hot days (mid 80s or more) followed by unseasonably cool nighttime temps (drops of 25-30 degrees)--wonderful for sleeping but horribly conducive to powdery mildew and perhaps also the squash plant's inability to set fruit. And then we had a terrific wind/rain storm (not enough rain, sadly) Tuesday and one of my nice, full-size-but-still-immature butternuts broke off the vine and fell to the ground even though I had had it supported in a sling because of its size/weight. I need to add a separate post in the forums or someplace to see if there is a way to prepare "green" squash to make it edible. I just hate to see it go into the compost bin!
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shoontok
13 years ago
I dont think its too late. I actually tore out about 20 squash plants yesterday because they dying from bug attacks on the stems. I replanted a packet of Zucchini on July 23 and got about 18+ seedlings out of that packet so far. I re-tilled the unsuccesful first attempt bed and transplanted the new zukes there. Hoping for the best.

Also planted a pack of string beans and cukes on July 23. The beans are already 4 inches+ in heights and leafing out nicely. Got a whole bunch of cuke seedling too that i have to spread out in various spots.

Im being optomistic in these three veggies cause they are fast growers.
peps22
Original Author
13 years ago
I should have been more descriptive.. It is puritan butternut squash. Probably 15-20 male flowers either developing or in bloom right now.
farmerdilla
13 years ago
If the vines are now healthy and you are getting lots of male blossoms, you should have time. Butternuts normally take about 50 days from female blossoms. You will need to hand pollinate since you may not have enough blossoms to attract pollinators. The vine would appear to stunted so your butternuts will most likely be smaller and fewer in number than a normal plant would produce.

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