Sorry you haven't had a response before now. My first thought is that you are experiencing a normal attrition of immature fruit. Squash usually set on more little fruit, especially when they first start setting fruit, than they can support. Hence many wither and drop off within a week. This is normal. You will get good fruit set. These little fruit can also be eaten.

George
Tahlequah, OK

First, you have to distinguish MALE and FEMALE flowers. Once you know that you pollinate the females only(with male). My summer squashes are just blooming. I pollinated one yesterday and one today. Remains to be seen. But over the years I have pollinated tens of bottle gourds and nothing failed. Those gourds' flowers open after sundown, when the bees are gone home. And the flowers close next morning before the bees come to work. Only night flying moths(if any) can pollinate them. But I did not see them either.

Actually , hand pollination has a better chance, since I pick a male flower, strip all of its petals then touch the female organ wit it. If I have more than one female, I can use the same male on other ones too. The only reason that I can think of why it might not work is that the plant aborts it , for some other reasons.

My blue hubbard was pollinated well and the one fruit began growing fast. We had enough rain every week so I didn't have to water. All looked well. After 3 weeks that squash/fruit got to half of the size of a football....and then stopped growing. Rot appeared on it's blossom end a few days ago and it was turning a faint yellowish-gray both on the "belly" (where it lay on the dirt) and on it's "back" (facing the sky) of the squash.

I could see that it stopped growing because 2 of my Golden Hubbards, which were pollinated about a week after the blue was, have both surpassed the blue hubbard in size and are now much larger.

There are mushrooms growing in the squash bed and someone wrote online that mushrooms carry pathogens that can harm squash. I have since removed all of the mushrooms.

Does anyone have any idea why my squash stopped growing? The seeds came from a blue hubbard I bought at a local plant nursery. (So did the Golden hubbard, however). One of the nursery's commercial growers had brought a variety of winter squashes there to sell.

Well, it's hard to say, without actually looking at it. But I wonder if it isn't just maturing. They often do get a faded spot, at least on the bottom, when they are ripening. The other possibility is simply that the plant "decided" to abort that fruit, for whatever reason. If that's so, then it will rot very soon. But I definitely disagree about mushrooms. They don't hurt squash. Perhaps the conditions which the mushrooms really like promote fungus disease. But they themselves hurt nothing.

Glad to know mushrooms aren't going to hurt anything. :-) The blue hubbard fruit did begin to rot on the flesh at it's blossom end. The rot completely encircled where the blossom had been and the small bottom stem also turned to rot....so I finally picked it to use as a summer squash. Hurt my heart to do that but it was obviously stunted and no longer growing. The plant itself seems to be yellowing more than any of the other plants - and I did overplant in that bed - so perhaps not enough nutrients were reaching it. (It was the largest plant in the bed at the time of that fruit's fast growth). I am now adding Miracle Grow to the composted soil in that bed and am watching both Golden hubbards to see how they continue to do since they are right beside that blue hubbard. Another blue hubbard close by has also grown a female blossom which should be opening in about a week or so. Hope still lives here in Mudville. Mighty Casey hasn't struck out - yet.

Would tossing some bone meal into the composted manure help? Everything is growing in 1 year old composted manure. Money is tight, so any ideas would be appreciated. :-)