The female flowers will have a little baby zucchini right behind the blossom. The males just have a thin stem.

And if you really DON'T have time, hand pollinate.
We as humans were divinely given dominion over the entire earth, so no need to rely solely on the bees..lol

Grab a Q-tip & play matchmaker! I did it with my watermelons last year. At times, we have few bees here in urban Milwaukee, so I did what I had to do.

This post was edited by Drewski_ on Fri, Jun 28, 13 at 19:54

Thanks. But I know how to identify male/female flowers, but my questions is should I give it more time, or should I hand pollinate? Shouldn't the plants be producing fruit by now? Because I've read that at first plants produce male flowers for a while, then eventually will produce female. I'm just needing to know if I should give it more time. I guess I'm just confused because why wouldn't the zucchini be pollinated when everything else is? Something strange is going on in the bee world.... ðÂÂÂ

Thanks drewski. I guess my butt will be getting up at dawn to play matchmaker with my zucchini. Woohoo! ðÂÂÂ

It's all good, lol

Can you give me advice on my issue? (0 follow-ups -__- )

I am not out early enough to tell if the flowers are male/female. Am I being impatient?

This is what threw me about your post. Especially if you say you know how to distinguish male from female flowers. Time of day has nothing to do with that. Which is which is always obvious whether the flower is open or not. And if you are careful you can hand pollinate at any time of the day.

Is it possible that they are all male at this point

Yes it is possible that they are all male and that is why you have no fruit yet but you should be able to tell if they are just by looking at them.

Dave

How do i know if the females are polinated? If there are little cukes on there already?. How long will it take for the cukes to mature?

I have read that morning is the best time to hand pollinate. So, that's where I got the assumption about the time of day. It does hold true in my case, because in afternoon, when I get out to check my garden, the flowers have all dropped and its hard to identify if they were male or female at that point. I guess I am going to have to get a closer look... And try for morning and see if there are any females. This is my first time having to even deal with this. Trial and error. My precious zukes are worth sacraficing a little beauty sleep. ð´

How do i know if the females are polinated? If there are little cukes on there already?. How long will it take for the cukes to mature?
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All female flowers have small fruit at the end of blossom, before pollination. No way to know whether it is pollinated or not for several days. Even if it is already pollinated re pollination is not going to hurt, just like the first be might have pollinated it and the second be does it too.

It does hold true in my case, because in afternoon, when I get out to check my garden, the flowers have all dropped and its hard to identify if they were male or female at that point. I guess I am going to have to get a closer look... And try for morning and see if there are any females.

Ok there is still a problem here.

First, the zucchini flowers don't "drop" off in that short of time. They live for 4-5 days in various stages of development. And for those several days it is always quite clear which is female and which is male.

The blooms go through stages of development over several days:

small, tightly closed and green
then bigger, light green to pale yellow but still closed
bright yellow and then they open for a day
they close up and gradually begin to brown
brown and shriveling
fall off.

So if your flowers have actually dropped off the stem in 24 hours then something else is wrong.

Second, even after the blooms fall off it is very obvious which blooms were males and which were females because the small zuke is still there on the females for several days even if it isn't pollinated.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Pics of male and female squash blooms

Ok. Thank you. I just checked. I had not reached in to get a look at the dropped blooms. I see now that I have males. The flowers are all male and it looks like most of them coming in are male. One or two female flowers. The ladies are not opened just yet. Should I wait until they are open to pollinate? Thanks for all the info. I was not checking the dropped flowers nor was I paying attention to the buds coming in. But I'm learning to pay more attention. I feel like 'duh'. My eyes are in training ;)
Alley

Save a few of the male flowers that dropped. Maybe you can use the pollen off the fallen males to pollinate when the female decides to open.

I have a female flower open but no males available!!

Oh, how out numbered she is! I will save some male flowers and hopefully she is won't play ''hard to get'. ðÂÂÂ

Me and my four year old 'painted' the flowers. Not happy when I opened the male flower... SVB CITY. It's gonna be a fun summer. Hopefully they won't do too much damage before some fruit come it. Eeeek!! Trying to stay positive :)
Alley