Why won't my zucchini plants produce zucchini? They are blossoming like crazy, but nothing is growing!?
Question:My zucchini plants are producing tons of blossoms, but the blossoms end up just falling off and no squash is growing. I tried to cross-fertilize some of the blossoms, thinking that they weren't getting fertilized by the insects, but it didn't seem to make a difference! Please help - I want to enjoy my zucchini this summer! What am I doing wrong?
Answers:
Plants of this type, Cucurbits, have both male and female flowers. As the name suggests only the female flower will produce a fruit. The male flower starts showing up alot earlier in the season than the female so your plant will flower for a while before it can set a fruit.
For your identification purposes.
The male flower is smaller and has a long and skinny stem. My wife tells me the male flower does not do much.
The female flower has a shorter fatter stem and is usually a larger bloom.
It is worthy to note that this plant is bee polinated so if you do not have enough bees in your garden you will probably want to hand pollinate. This can be done with a small paintbrush or by removing a male flower and using it like a brush.
Do not try to save a male flower, it needs to be used the same day.
water your plants about 2 hours a day in the evening...
Go to the plant shop and buy a fertilizer that encourages the zuccini to produce squash I think that you can also transfer pollen using a paintbrush
ask the local home depot gardener, they'll tell you whats wrong, most of the time, its the wrong type of weather. there are certain places you can grow things.
You were on the right track with trying to cross pollinate.. they aren't growing fruits because of not being correctly pollinated. You might not be able to do it if you don't have some male and female plants.. although most plants of that kind have both parts and you just have to know which is female and which is male. Look up your variety in the encyclopedia and see what the male and female parts of yours looks like and try again to cross pollinate. Hope it works for ya!
Sounds as if you might be watering too much and check the type of fertilizer you are using, if any. Did you mean cross pollinate and not cross fertilize?
My mom grows zuchini alot. The flowers you describe are PERFECTLY NORMAL. YOu have to wait about a few weeks to a month for that green plant to come out. TRUST ME.
Zucchini plants produce both male and female flowers. The male flowers are there simply to produce pollen and then they fall off. The female flowers are the ones that produce the fruit. You can identify the females by the bulge in the flower stem. When the plant begins to flower, most of the flowers are male and are doing exactly what they are supposed to do by falling off. Look closely at the flowers and see if you can find the female flowers with the little bulge in the stem that connects the flower to the plant. Then take a male flower off the plant and pull off all the petals and use it to apply pollen to the center of the female flower (or just let the bees do it). The plant will produce male flowers first then it will begin to produce females, about one female to two males. Good Luck.
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