Each plant will have male and female blooms on it. The males will have a long thin stem with the bloom on the end and the female will have the beginnings of a small fruit with the flower on the end (much shorter than the male). You can pollinate within the same plant by visiting the male and then the female, but cross pollinating won't matter for this years crop as that's what the bees do. Cross pollination will only affect next years seeds. You may not be getting fruit yet as the plant generally produce several male blooms before it begins the females.

Interestingly enough my compost pile from last years garden has yielded what I believe to be an acorn/zucchini hybrid. The initial leaves looked like acoen, but as the plant matured the leaves look like zuchinni, but it's long and viny with almost perfectly round unridged fruit. I can't wait to see what it tastes like! None of the immature squash have opened flowers yet and they are getting quite large.

grandpop (or whomever) do you think there closeness has any effect. everyone says to plant them 4 to six ft apart, mine are probably 2 or 3, but they are big and green and full of flowers...

It's not the proximity. Chances are good that you'll get female blooms soon.

WF, I let a volunteer squash grow wild last year - it produced pretty decent little fruits when immature like summer squash but the mature ones were pulpy and not good for anyone other than a cow. I think that's overwhelmingly the result for chance crosses of squash.

the 4-6' planting recommendation is just to give them room to grow. I plant 4 to the hill and give them about 5 feet to run in each of four directions. How you planted them should not affect fruiting. The question is are you getting female flowers as I described above, if not be patient. I am growing two varieties. I have picked several of one variety and have yet to get a female bloom on the other - same as last year.

grandpop, if you haven't gotten any either, that makes me feel a little better. thanks for the help.

I use 18 inch spacing for all bush squash. Some of the newer hybrids do lead with females, but the older OP cultivars lead with males. Trying the picture route with Blackball, one of the newer hybrid zukes. {{gwi:13567}}

That's a great picture and it brings a question to mind. Has anyone grown any of the round green summer squash to maturity? I want to know if any of them mature into essentially an orange pumpkin. I would love to have pumpkin plants that are as compact as summer squash. I know that crookneck squash are essentially compact gourds. When crookneck squash are mature they get lots of bumps and turn deep orange, they also dry like a gourd. The variety in the picture certainly looks like it will turn orange when mature.

Like the vast majority of summer squash, the flesh dries up when ripe. There are several cultivars of bush pumpkins. Spirit is the one readily to mind.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bush pumpkin

Cool picture ! I've never seen a round one before.

Ther are quite a few round zukes both hybrid and open pollinated. Cue Ball has performed best for me. One Ball can be pretty, Eight Ball is similar to Black ball but not as good a producer for me. Tonda di Nizza, open pollinated medium green, but not a great producer. {{gwi:63161}} {{gwi:63162}} {{gwi:63163}}

Great photos Farmerdilla! I have a question regarding your first photo. My eightball zucchini is the size of the small blackball zucchini in your photo. I'm a newbie and I don't know if this means it has been pollinated and will grow or if it's what I've read about when people have described a female flower as having what looks like a small fruit. Any advice would be greatly appreciated...

The best eating stage for all of these is pool (billiard) ball size. Large ones( bigger than a softball) are good for splitting, stuffing and baking. They don't wait around afetr pollination, so you will know in a day or so. Once the plant gets all it can handle it will abort others pollinated or not. If you look closely you will see aborted squash in each photo.

Thanks for the explanation - I wouldn't have known to look for aborted squash. :) I'll keep a close eye on them and hope they produce.

This really is a great forum for beginners to get a lot of great information. Thank you to all the experienced gardeners out there who have the patience to answer our questions!

Hi Southerngrower and all other forum participants. I know there are those of you that will think this is crazy of me to do, but this year I had the very same problem with flowering but not pollinating. I assumed it was because I had planted them too close (last years were 4' apart and seemed to waste space). So I began to follow the male shoots and noticed that the leaves were so huge that in my mind they were getting in the way of the male. Therefore, I took 1-2 of the leaves on each plant that I noticed were in the way of the male shoots and broke them off at the base of that stem. Within 2 days I had fruit developing! Based upon my experiment and contrary to the average gardners opinion, I believe this system works. Just be careful to break off the leaves at the base of the leafs stem(hollow tube) and not any lower. You might consider giving this a try and let us know if it works for you as well.

Good Luck - Kara