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Vegetable Gardening

Are my butternut squash being wierd?

14 years ago

I have a couple of female blossoms that have bloomed but they do not have yellow flowers. The green part opens and there is no yellow flower at all. I see the stamens (or whatever you call them on a female flower) in there. Is it normal for female butternut blossoms to bloom green with short thick petal/leave looking things instead of yellow flowers? They also look like they only partually open and do not close. I have plenty of huge yellow male blossoms on the plant.

Any ideas?

Ania

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Comments (6)

catherinet
14 years ago
Hi Ania,
I'm in zone 5. At the beginning of the season for quite awhile, I had these green/petaled-type blossoms for awhile. Eventually, the butternut squash started making the yellow flowers. Maybe that's what your plant is doing?
ania_ca
Original Author
14 years ago
Oh good. I thought there may be something wrong. These are the first female blossoms of the season for me.

Should I try to pollenate them or just wait for the normal blossoms?

Ania
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catherinet
14 years ago
I just waited for the yellow blossoms. I'm not sure the green ones could even reproduce. Now I have an enormous amount of squash growing!
Do you blossoms look something like this?
{{gwi:100855}}
ania_ca
Original Author
14 years ago
catherinet,

Your pic is of a closed blossom. Mine look like that but are open and all green and look dwarfed or deformed to me. No real flower petals or anything of color on them.

Ania
catherinet
14 years ago
Some of the ones like in the pic never developed into a yellow blossom. I still think you're okay.
rjinga
14 years ago
I have 2 butternut squash plants that to date EACH have ONE squash on them...who knows what happened there. And the plants have grown very litte since planted. another strange thing (last year they sprawled everywhere)

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