A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Food Garden Forum Vegetable Gardening Squash ...falling off without maturing

Hi , We have planted a little raised garden and used some good compost and covered it with the weed preventer plastic covering ...we punched holes in and the plants look wonderful ..all look so healthy but the baby squash are all falling off...should I remove the plastic weed stuff ...or you think it could just be the Georgia ...rain...Southwest Georgia????

Fruit on squash will form without pollination, but will drop off. How large are they when they drop off? Are they ALL falling off? Or just some?

Hello everyone:

This is NoLo Jones from Long Island New York. I am having the same problem with my squash. One squash was about 4 to 5 inches long when it dried up. I tried hand pollination on a few but I still have not gotten any more squashes after that. I have 2 trees and I got 4 squashes so far without any hand pollination( which I lerned about from this forum) thanks!! . Also my trees seem to be producing less flowers. I even noticed a few very tiny squashes that seem to be yellow before the flowers are even completely formed. Need help urgently I am loosing all my squashes.

I'm not familiar with the growing area you two are in, but I'll say this. at the begining of spring/summer I had the same problem with my squash falling off while they were still small. they'd get squashy (no pun intended) too.
from what I discovered mine were falling off due to drastic temp changes. at the time mine were still getting pretty darn cold evenings, but then heating up a LOT during the day. from what I remember when I was reading up on mine (and what I also learned from this forum) is that squash like somewhat stable temps.

could that be the prob?

OH, and I see you mentioned rain.....squash also like consistant watering.

Hi There;

NoLo again. Here in long Island the summer was colder than usual so far and we had lots of rain ( not too much for me) but the lowest temperature was around 65 deg. at nights which I do not think was bad. I was wondering if the soil had anything to do with it, but then again I do not have any problems with my cucumber.
NoLo, and Thanks for any help I can get.

In my experience when a squash aborts its fruit its either because of lack of watering or fluctuations in temperature. For example hot days and cool nights will cause squash fruits not to set.

I have only about 10 plants now (a few got very sick from bugs or weather and went to compost) but I think that loosing a few fruits to nature for one reason or another is part of the deal. I always plant more than I'll need to compensate for the ones that don't make it to the table.

I only have had one problem so far this year. My squash have been falling off before maturing. I have concluded that it may be due to heat(110 Degrees today) and/or lack of constant water? I use old tires as raised planters and have now added a constant slow drip to my squash to see if that fixes my problems and also did a little hand pollination as well. hopefully that will help. I am growing Zucchini and Mexican Squash if any one has any info on these varieties that I should know about let me know I have successfully grown Zucchini in the past but not the Mexican Squash.

I grow several types of squash in my garden and there is always a few that fall off when they're very small or just don't make it to pick size (5") it is not a problem when you get so many from one plant all season long.