I recommend using row covers too. And hand pollinating isn't difficult at all - unless we are talking tons of plants as that would get to be a chore. But for a few plants - no problem. Just a daily early morning tour by the plants to check for female blooms that need attention. There is a FAQ here on how to do it. I linked it below. You can grow 2 varieties. Unless you want to save the seed from an OP variety it makes no difference if they accidently cross. But you will want to hand pollinate each with its own male blooms. Dave Here is a link that might be useful: How to hand pollinate squash FAQ

I am curious what you mean by opened partially? If you open the flower a day early it won't work and if you open the flower after it blooms at like 5 in the afternoon it won't work. You should pollinate the flowers when they are open. You definitely want to hand pollinate before 10 am, the earlier the better. The later it becomes the less pollen is left on the flowers. If you really want to be sure you get all that valuable pollen tape a flower shut the day before or put a bag over the male flower until it tries to open and you can use all that pollen. Rain could be an issue but it probably wasn't unless your plants are surrounded by sitting water (like puddles). I am sure in the very near future you will start getting all those wonderful squash.

Betty, Most of my tomatoes made it through the summer, but I'll qualify that by saying the weather here in southern OK often is very different from the weather in central and NE OK. We didn't have rain at all when the OKC area had flooding rains, but then we had 5" of rain in July followed by a very dry August and then 13" of rain in September. I feel like having the rain in July saved my garden from the June drought and then the rain in Sept. revived it after a brutally hot and dry August. A few of the tomatoes that "took a lickin' and kept on tickin" in my garden this year, producing virtually all season (some are still producing now) included: Sun Gold, Black Cherry, Heinz 1439, Santa Clara Canner, Ildi (a yellow grape type tomato), Tess's Land Race Currant, Heidi (a red paste tomato), Black Brandywine, Sweet Million, Nebraska Wedding, Red Brandymaster, Pink Brandymaster (both Brandymaster types seem to run out of steam in late June but then rebounded nicely in late July after we received some rain in July), Husky Red Cherry, Better Bush, Bush Goliath, J. D.'s Special C-Tex, Dana's Dusky Rose, Red Defender, and Indian Stripe. Some varieties that didn't set fruit well in May and June due to unseasonably early high heat/high humidity did rebound well and set fruit in September, although I am not sure if they'll have a chance to ripen before frost. Two varieties that were new to me and which I grew both in containers and in the ground were Tumbling Tom Red and Tumbling Tom Yellow. They both produced oodles and oodles of red or yellow cherry tomatoes and they produced them really early. There wasn't necessarily anything special about the flavor to me, but DS took them to work and the guys at the fire station happily ate them and thought they tasted just fine. They likely would be producing still, but the hordes of grasshoppers that hit us so hard here in July stripped them of their foliage, and compulsively ate each leaf that tried to leaf out after the plants had been stripped. So, I guess we could say that Tumbling Tom Red and Tumbling Tom Yellow won the Grasshopper Taste Test. I had many other varieties that produced great in May and June and July, but petered out after that. Hope this info helps a bit. Dawn

Tomatoes are self-pollinating but squash, zucchini, pumpkins and other vine crops, produce separate male and female flowers on the same plant and may need assistance in order to produce a crop in times of stress or the absence of insect vectors. It can be a bit time consuming but one can hand-pollinate by using a small artist's paintbrush and touching it to the pollen-bearing stamens in the male flowers and then to the receptive tip of the pistil in the female flower (the one that appears to have a small squash or such at the base). First, make sure that your plant is producing both male and female flowers before assuming that bees or other insects are not doing their job. Usually, the first flowers are all males and so will fall off without producing fruit. Extreme hot or cold weather can also the production of only male flowers or render pollen ineffective. If there are both types of flower but the tiny fruit appear to be rotting or dying on the vine, this is a sign of inadequate pollination (also called "fruit abortion"). In addition to the brush method mentioned above, one can simply pick a male bloom, peel off all the flower petals and lightly dust pollen onto the pistils of the females with the male stamen. Several females can be pollinated with one male. It is easiest to do early in the morning when the blooms are open.