I have the same problem with my zucchinis -- the female flowers come on first with tiny zucchinis attached, but they never open and there are no male flowers. The plants are healthy (planted from seed from a local reputable seed company) and have no powdery mildew or insect damage that I can see. My question: Should I pinch off at least a few of the too many female flowers to lessen that stress on the plant to see if it might help more male flowers catch up? Also, I read somewhere that pinching out some of the outside stems that have no flowers, to sort of force new growth of stems that supposedly will tend to have the opposite gender of flowers. Any truth to this?

Wow, pretty shade of purple on those blooms. I have a couple Manzano plants growing that have similar blooms that seem to struggle to open all the way. They are producing some nice peppers but not a lot. I just figured it was normal but maybe not. If the plant has been producing blooms since May but hasn't set any pods yet, then I would say you definitely have a problem. I don't really know what the problem would be, but one possible fix would be to wait until the bloom is mature and then open it yourself carefully and manually pollinate it. I know, not very convenient, but at least you have a shot at getting some peppers to set. I would love to see that plant full of ripening peppers. Bruce

I'll try to get a photo this weekend. Perhaps the reason my one is flowering is because it's been neglected? I've had it for seven years, it's pot-bound (even though it's in a huge pot), and possibly that fact combined with the sporadic watering/feeding has triggered its "Help! I'm going to die! Must reproduce!" response? I have a work colleague who has numerous plants in her office, all in small pots, never fed and often very dry, that are constantly in panic-flowering mode. (Not, of course, that I'm advocating treating plants that way, especially bananas!)

Thanks dev good to know! Yes Laura same here, yesterday I actually went and lined up some of my buckets in my grow room to see how many I can actually fit per row. I kind of forgot that I need to leave room for me to actually walk around and water and tend to them properly. They will all fit but it will be very tight and I will need to use my shelves for the smaller ones, which means I need to reinforce the shelves for the added weight and add more lights. There will definitely be no room for seed starting in there so hopefully we get an early spring again so I can get them outside early. Yikes it's going to be crazy in there! Waiting for the I told you so from my husband lol. How are you going to manage your watering? I have a floor drain so I can just let them pour through but what do you do in winter? Maybe I shouldn't have brought that up!