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Pollinating squash/female flowers not opening

12 years ago

I have 4 squash plants; 2 spaghetti and 2 zucchini. It has taken forever for the female flowers to come up, and now they are not opening and just dying. I recently pried open one of the female flowers and pollinated it myself with one of the male flowers, but I am afraid that prying the flower open damaged it, or it wasn't ready yet. But otherwise they just die!

Any ideas?

Comments (3)

  • 12 years ago

    Try the site for pumpkins and squash maybe some one there can help you. Past experience tells me they maybe getting wet. Sorry I can't be more help never had it happen.
    Go up top to forums and find the site trough there.

  • 12 years ago

    My first year I tried Pumpkins, the same thing happened to me. Now I grow pumpkins, squash and zucchini every year and have a lot. I'll tell you everything I found that I did wrong my first year and see how many things you're also doing (these are in order of most significant to least).

    1st, I planted the plants way too close together. All of these plants feed *heavily*, more than any plant I know of actually. If they are competing with any other plants, none of them get what they want. At most, I will have 3 (maybe 4 if I did really good soil prep the season prior) plants in a 5x5' area. I start out with 6 plants spread out in the area and then cut out 2-3 that took longer to start about 3 weeks in. That part is difficult to do, but if you know how much it helps them, it makes it easier to do.

    2. I wasn't feeding them enough. I feed and water them heavily now. I don't think it's possible to accidentally over-water them, as long as they're getting good sun. I give them fish emulsion almost every day and then start to add a blooming fertilizer (high in phosphorous) once they start growing blooms. Not everyday on the phosphorous fertilizer because I use a chemical fertilizer for that. This applies slightly less to squash and zucchini. I may feed those every 3 days.

    3. I didn't prep the area long before planting. I've started prepping the area I plan on planting them the season prior with a good amount of manure. This isn't as important as the others as I've had fine yields without doing it, but it does increase the yield by a good amount.

    Oh yeah, one other thing I've started doing since then is mulch. I mulch everything that's in the ground and it seems to help a lot.

    This post was edited by iAndy on Fri, May 9, 14 at 21:05

  • 12 years ago

    Maybe that's why my zucchini in 100 percent manure recently composted is doing the best. Heavy feeders for sure. The least active is the one grown in potting soil.

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