A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Vegetable Gardening Squash will flower but not grow

Hi,

This year is my first time growing a garden. Everything looks healthy and huge but we are only getting flowers on our pumpkins, watermelon, cucumbers, zucchini acorn Squash etc, no veggies. Everyone else in this area already has sizable veggies.

Someone mentioned it could be because we aren't trimming them? Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks,
Kathy

do you have any bee's or other pollinators coming to the flowers?

Hi, I ave lots of flowers on my squash, but weve had a poor summer in England so things ae slow here. Our toms are not ripe yet!

In the beginning there were bunch of bees, but I haven't seen many for a while. If there aren't enough pollinators what should I do?

some pollinate with q-tips. I did that at the old house when we lived 'in the city'. Also, watch the watering. If bee's or other pollinators, pollinate...then you water like the rain. it can wash the pollination right out of the blooms.
for next year, plant some native flowering plants and flowers around your garden. that will attract your pollinators.
for now. get out your q-tips and go to town! he he.
'Be the bee'

Thanks, that is interesting.I didn't plan any flowers this year because I was focusing on getting a veggie garden started. It didn't even occur to me that I need to get some of them in there to attract the bees.

Thanks- I'll break out the q tips tomorrow. Do i just try to grab pollen from one and put it on the other?

Does anyone know a good website explaining how to pollinate your plants? Some of mine are producing fine, and I've seen several bees around my house, but I've had a similar problem with some of my squash. Hopefully there's no stupid questions, though, because I tried looking at the flowers but couldn't quite figure out what went where. I guess I need plant sex ed, and no abstinence training, please.

ha ha ha - and no abstinence training, please.

the first year I had squash we had no bees. I read up on the q-tip pollination thing. your supposed to pollinate a male with a female. I got so confused trying to figure out which was which! I just got in there with the qtip and dabbed here and there. there is a proper way to do if you have the patience and understanding for it.

We have a patch of Blackeye Susan and they do a great job atracting bees all season long. You plant the seeds ones and they come-up every year, just keep the deer out, they love the yellow flowers!

http://vric.ucdavis.edu/veginfo/commodity/garden/crops/squashsm.pdf

I've never hand pollinated anything but I am a biologist. This site/document looks to be very informative. Among the things it says is that:

* male flowers bloom earlier than female, and that
* female flowers are recognizable (in comparison), but the presence of a very small, immature "fruit" at the base of the flower. (It's not really a fruit at this stage, it's an ovary-- the part of the female flower than contains the ovules, which are the female sex cells are located.)

So, I am thinking that one efficient and less tedious way to hand pollinate would be to pluck the male flower at its base and then gently peel the pedals back, exposing the anthers (sticking up parts), which produce and contain the pollen (=male sex cells). Then just shake or lightly rub the anthers over or on the sigma (top part of the sticking up part) of the female flowers. I don't even think the ratio of male to female would need to be 1:1-- one male might have enough pollen for more than one female.

SEX ED:
This site (http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/plants/printouts/floweranatomy.shtml) has a pretty decent picture of a "typical" flower. The flower pictured has both male and female reproductive organs, put the principles are the same for flowers of only one sex. The stigma (female) is usually a bit sticky. Pollen (male) is very small. By some means-- bees, wind, physical contact-- the pollen gets on top of the stigma. Pollen on the stigma triggers the female plant to produce pollen tubes in the style (the part that holds up the stigma). The pollen goes down the pollen tubes into the ovary which contains the ovules (female sex cells). Boom! Pollination!!

The "fruit" (squash, etc.) we harvest is actually a matured ovary. The seeds inside the fruit are the fertilized ovules.

When you think of it, fertilization in plants isn't a whole lot different than in humans!