You know they are finished when they stop producing. Sometimes, though, plants stall and don't produce in high heat and then begin producing again after a round of cooler and wetter weather.

With bush beans, I can usually pick beans from them for 3 to 6 weeks (it varies depending on the time of year and the plant variety) and then I pull them up and plant another round of something else in their place. Some people pick bush beans for a few weeks and then cut the plants back to just a few inches above ground (be sure to leave some leaves), water them well and get new growth and production.

With squash, I keep picking as long as they keep flowering and maturing squash. Zucchini that is 'small and squishy' would relate more to a lack of pollination or a plant disease than to the end of the plants' life. In a year when squash bugs and squash vine borers don't kill my plants, they'll produce until frost.

Bees and other pollinators are not as active in wet weather, so that could be why your squash plants seem like they aren't producing well right now. If you're seeing flowers that fall without forming fruits, it likely is because the pollinators are staying out of the rain. The situation could correct itself. If no flowers are forming, they might need a boost from a fertilizer high in the middle number (phosphorus) to stimulate flower production. For that purpose, I like Green Light Super Bloom.

Any time I have plants that are not producing, I run through a checklist in my head to see if I can figure out if it is heat or moisture stress, a fertility issue, a pest issue or what. If I can't turn the plant around by addressing whatever stressor I think is impacting it, I will yank it out and replace it with something else.

Hope this helps.

i thought the bush type of plants produce all at once then they are done?

Well, the use of the term "all at once" is subjective. That doesn't mean you get all the beans in one picking. You get them in several pickings over a period of a few weeks. It does mean that they don't produce for months on end, though, like tomato plants tend to.

I have a planting of Contender bush bean plants from which I've been harvesting since early June. It goes in spurts. They'll produce a lot. I'll pick them. They'll sit there doing seemingly nothing for a couple of weeks, then put out a big flush of blooms and beans again and I'll pick them. Then, we'll repeat the whole thing all over again.

My first planting of green bean plants which we started harvesting from in late April or May are finally done, though, and I'm getting ready to yank them out.

Many determinate (bush type) tomatoes are the same way. They often are incorrectly said to produce all their fruit at once, but that's an incomplete description. They will produce a huge crop all at once, but if managed well, they'll put out more blooms and fruits later....just not continually like an indeterminate type does.

Most 'rules' in gardening are not cut and dried or absolute. For some people, bush beans may produce all at once and maybe it depends on their climate. I don't know. For me, though, they produce for a month or two if I keep them well-picked and don't let any beans on the plants get overly mature.

thanks a lot for the info! I got to thinking about it and I guess I attribute the squishy zuke to so much rain. The rest of the plant is looking great. I didn't see that one when I went out there to pick (which I do every couple of days). However there are no more flowers on them, and I have been picking zuke for a while.

The bean plants I yanked I let sit for a week to see if I got any more blooms on them, the only ones left all have blooms. But the white scallop squash is about to run me out of the yard! It is amazing to me that I think I have picked everything, then I go out the next day and there is one or two that are huge! They grow fast!! LOL ...

Thanks again...

You're welcome.