how to get female flowers on squash?
daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)
5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago
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gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
5 years agodaninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agoRelated Discussions
Female squash flowers browning without opening
Comments (5)Yes there have been several questions about this lately and generally the answer is the same - stressed plants will abort blooms and fruit. Anything you can do to reduce the stress - in this case improve the drainage in the area - helps. But to be on the safe side make sure all the other bases are covered too - feed them and try to do some very early AM hand pollination. Then hope for the weather to improve. Good luck. Dave...See MoreSummer Squash (yellow zucchini) female flowers browning and dying
Comments (8)Hi Gardenerenthusiast, I am glad you asked this question because the same thing has been happening to me, on both my zucchinis and my spaghetti squashes. Along with rotting blossoms that don't open, I've been getting female blossoms where the squash has shrivelled up before the flower even opens. My plants are otherwise healthy, though I have just started to see some yellowing on the leaves. Unfortunately I have no idea what is causing this, though I've narrowed it down to blossom end rot (which would mean a lack of calcium in the soil) or under watering (it's been very dry here and I've been watering shallowly and regularly, instead of deeply), or some kind of virus/fungus etc. I can't see any trace of pests on my plants, save for a few black aphids, and there are no signs of squash vine borers. One of the strange things is that it suddenly affected my zucchini, spaghetti squashes, and now my delicata squashes all around the same time, even though they are in different garden beds. This makes me think it is either the weather or a virus. My current theory is that I haven't watered them deeply enough, and also that they might need more plant food since they are quite close together and fruiting heavily. Sorry I don't have an answer for you, but I would be curious to know if any of that sounds familiar to you. Good luck!...See Moreno female squash flowers
Comments (4)Well, then, Larry, if you have a lot of bees, I don't know why your female flowers aren't getting pollinated. You still could hand pollinate by using a Q-tip, a small paint brush, etc. to transfer pollen from the male flower to the female flower if you want to ensure that fertilization occurs. Or, just remove a male flower and 'dab' the female flower with it to transfer the pollen. We have had oodles of bees in the garden, but they seem like they've been really distracted by all the flowers on the cucumbers and Armenian cukes, but have not been so entranced by the flowers on the watermelons and winter squash. It makes me think the bees play favorites perhaps. I've seen more winter squash set fruit in the last week than in the entire previous two months so maybe it is just that the timing is finally right for whatever reason, and it wasn't before. Our rainfall has been more like yours, Larry, in that it hasn't fallen that much....a little over an inch last week and then again today. That sounds like a lot, but it isn't much compare to parts of OK who keep getting 2 or 3 or 4" every week or two. Our rainfall now is slightly above our usual year-to-date rainfall for this point in the calendar year, but not significantly so. The heavy rainfall since mid-May has gone a long way toward making up for the lack of rain prior to mid-May, but the part of our county that we live in still remains in moderate drought. I'm not having to water all that much though, at least not the last 2 weeks, and the plants look really great for late-July. I like the rain, but am relieved (in an odd way) that we are only getting smaller amounts here. We don't need the flooding and we don't need for anything to send the snakes up out of the woods into the garden....and we don't need for excess rain to ruin what has been a great summer so far. Too much rain right now could simply ruin the texture and flavor of all the watermelons and muskmelons that are nearly ripe, so I'd just as soon have the rain stay a little on the skimpy side. I was thinking about your Brazilian squash. Often, squash (and beans and maybe some other things as well) from that part of the world are day-length sensitive and won't set fruit until late in the summer or even early autumn as the number of hours of sunlight per day decreases. George could tell you more about that than I could, because he has lived and gardened outside the USA whereas I've always lived and gardened within 100 miles of where I live now. I grow a scarlet runner bean, mostly just to have the gorgeous red flowers for the hummingbirds, that is called Insuk's Wang Kong, and it never flowers until a couple of months after the regular scarlet runner beans have begun flowering. It sometimes doesn't even set beans and mature them for me, because it is just so late that an early first frost gets the beans before they mature. For that reason, I grow it more as a novelty or curiosity and never really expect a harvest from it. I'm sure in some climates it sets great, but ours isn't warm enough deep enough into fall for it to be a big producer here. You may find that your Brazilian squash is a really late producer in the same way. Dawn...See MoreFemale squash flowers dying BEFORE opening
Comments (7)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!...See Moredigdirt2
5 years agoCA Kate z9
5 years agovgkg Z-7 Va
5 years agodaninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)
5 years agolast modified: 5 years agodigdirt2
5 years agozeedman Zone 5 Wisconsin
5 years agodaninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)
5 years agolast modified: 5 years ago
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daninthedirt (USDA 9a, HZ9, CentTX, Sunset z30, Cfa)Original Author