A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2004 Squash

I have three mature squash plants one zucchini, and two yellow squash. On of my yellow squash produces very little, and the other one doesn't do any thing at all. I rotated the crops this year, last year i had squash growing out my ears. I fertilize every three weeks with a vegtable fertilizer. Help!

With What DO you fertilize? What is the N-P-K? too much N, and you will get alot of green, but few fruit. also, may be a pollination issue, how is your Bee population, are you finding small, shriveled up, under developed squash? if so, Hand pollination is Best, and as In nature, pollination is at it's best in warm,DRY weather! Damp weather=bad pollination, HOT weather =Bad pollination,Which being in Texas, may be your problem.

I, too, am having problems with my squashes. I removed a lot of the dirt from the bed because it is mostly clay and added top soil and peak moss. The zuccini has male flowers, no females and the winter acorn squash has some females but they are rotting before they get more than an inch long. The bed gets morning to early afternoon sun and I ground water so that the leaves do not get wet. I used Miracle Grow but haven't fertilized much. The tomatoes in the same bed are doing great but they are a little so, and the cucumbers aren't doing anything either. What did I do wrong?

Miracle Grow is great but my squash wasn't doing well until I side dressed it with fertilizer. I've done it twice in the last 1-1/2 months, right before it rained, and now I have lots of squash.

largelady@aol.com,

My thinking is your are lacking calcium. This problem can also be cause by irregular watering.

I cannot address Miracle Grow as I'm an organic gardener. However, I would suggest finding out what besides the normal N-P-K does it supply. i.e. Macro, micro elements and what trace items does it supply.

Think of feeding your plants in this gene of thought: You could eat every meal in a fast food hamburger joint, get fat, and yet died from scurvy. If you look at hydroponics and all of the items that is added to their base N-P-K mixture you will get a good idea that the main three items is not enough to grow sucessfully.

You can have all of the base 3 items you want in the soil, but if your soil lacks the other macro, micro, and trace items that are needed then your plants cannot up-take the food.

One other thought is if your soil does not drain well (clay--or a good hard pan within a foot or so from the top) then over a period of a few years non-soluble salt from chemical fertilizers will build up in your soil. Your vegtables cannot deal with these salts.

It is normal for your squash to set male flowers before the females come on, the rotting females, I would say, are doing so because they ARE NOT getting pollinated , try hand pollinating, if you do a search here I am sure I posted the procedure, if not P.M. me, we had this problem too this year, at first it was cool and wet and those darn bee's just kept themselves inactive. As far as Miracle Grow goes(C'mon Raye tell em what you really think!) , If you would go pick up a quart of Neptune Harvest Fish and seaweed fert. NPK of 2-3-1, I am sure you will see marked improvement. Just Joshin' Ya Raye, Better that you don't address the Miracle Grow issue, Being with the UofM has me up front with MG user's all the time,I am Tactfully Winning quite a few over to OUR SIDE though

Thanks for the suggestions I'll give the fish and seaweed fert a try. I don't think it could be salts because this is a refurbished bed. We dug out about a foot of dirt (clay and rocks)and then replaced it with top soil and peat moss mix. The plants look great. Lots of big beautiful leaves. Lots of flowers but nothing has set yet. Everything seems slow this year. Just had a three day hot spell so hopefully things will produce now. My Grape tomatoes are 6ft tall. Have lots of immature tomatoes on it.

largelady@aol.com,

If you ever want to go container and organic I can show you some things that will just blow you away.

If you do then post that you do on the new organic posting board I will take whatever time is needed to get you there. Even if it is only a small test to prove this to ya.