No, you can put soaker hoses anytime, they are just laid on top of the soil. I did slow drip system and tried a few different ways and they all have some problems. What type you want depends upon how much area you have. If it is a small area, chepaest way to go would be to get 1/4 soaker tube by raindrip or something (from Home depot/lowes, $4 for 50 foot). If the plants are far apart, don't need soaker hose, instead get 1/2" black poly tubing and add drippers to it where ever there is a plant. On a large scale, use "drip irrigation tape" , mail order only. Good luck.

But your bloom dropping problem may not be just water. If these plants just started blooming, it is common for first few days because they don't get fertilized so they drop. Calcium deficiency can do it too. You fed the plants with sounds like too much nitrogen fertilizer and that could do it too. Feed "bloom fertilizer" the one with the middle number high, phosphorous, you can use liquid foliar spray or just put it on soil.

I haven't grown squash in a while, but I do remember the first few females always failed before they began to set squash. Even then, the first few squash that set had BER. Usually after waiting out the issues I had more squash than I knew what to do with. The only thing that concerns me is that you say the females aren't even blossoming.

I tell people I'm the only person in Missouri who can't grow zucchini. I have the same problem, but have noticed that my male blossums are full of ants. I don't know if that's keeping the females from pollinating, but lack of pollination is often the problem. I know my water is fine, the plants are huge and healthy, just won't make babies.

Thanks for your replies.
Re blooms, I have lots of huge healthy male blooms everyday with tons of wonderful bees doing their thing.
Do male and female blooms have different nutritional requirements?