A while back I was trying to identify whether I had cucumbers or melons. Looking at the growing plant now, I'm thinking it must be squash, it's not vining and the leaves are getting big. (shared seeds with neighbor)
I grew zuchini last year and had a lot of flowers but little in the way of the vegetable itself. I think this was a pollination problem as I don't have many bees here. What to do? I had no intention of trying squash again!
Jeff
If you do grow squash again, you may have to get up close, and personal with it (Q-tips ;O) also, check out
Pollinate'm by hand. Easy enough to do. Very early in the day, pick a "false" blossom and introduce its staminate parts well and thoroughly to the pistillate parts of the target. The flowers can come from the same plant. If you're successful, the fertilized flower will begin to wilt fairly soon. In the afterglow, some people remove the pollinated flower's petalst as a defense against creatures which lay eggs in nascent pepoes through the blossom. Dunno whether that ploy works; I just shoot for getting curcurbits in ahead of those things and of those stem-boring things. FWIW: As well as with squashes, etc. a few minutes' similar attention can greatly increase eggplant (aubergine) yield. At first, it's a little more difficult than with squash to reliably distinguish between eggplant blossom "gender" but it soon becomes instinctual. By-hand eggplant pollination "seems" to work best for me if the flowers are on different plants. Anyway, I vote that you establish a closer relationship with your curcubits ;-)
After thoughts: (1) male squash flowers are at the end of a long stem. (2)
(3)
Squash is a whole lot easier to hand-pollinate than cucumbers or melons would be! Male squash flowers are big enough to use by themselves to do the pollinating.
Either use the male blossoms (stripped of their petals) directly, or use a Q-tip to transfer pollen to the female blossoms. Best done in the morning.
Were they summer or winter squash you had problems with? Winter squash are likely to only set a few fruits per plant.
Either type will throw fewer female and more male flowers when growing in less than ideal situations, as pollen is less costly to produce than fruit.
Use a fine haired paintbrush such as you'd use to do a watercolour painting. Shove it into the flowers and move from one flower to the next. It doesn't take long to do and it works.
Since it doesn't look like anyone has suggested it...
Think aheadto next season and plant flowers to attract bees for next.
Woke up incoherent this morning...
Think ahead to next season and plant flowers to attract bees now.
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