Gardeners--Questions about squash flowering (trouble?)

[Storm Bay]

Our late planted garden is growing, especially the Cinderella pumpkin and the Banana Squash. At least one of the pumpkin vines is about 8 feet long already. However, the male and female blossoms seem to be blooming asynchronously and so far the first few female flowers and that round part under them are rotting because the flowers were done blooming with no pollen. Now, there haven't been many yet. Some male flowers are now blooming, but only female flower buds. Is this common when they first start blooming? There are lots more flowers budding. I'm hoping to harvest seeds, too, so would like to hand pollinate at least some of them.

 

Also, has anyone here eaten squash flowers? I heard they are edible, and that you'll still get squash. Do you just eat the male flowers?

[Storm Bay]

Bumping. Doran, anyone?

[Doran]

Our late planted garden is growing, especially the Cinderella pumpkin and the Banana Squash. At least one of the pumpkin vines is about 8 feet long already. However, the male and female blossoms seem to be blooming asynchronously and so far the first few female flowers and that round part under them are rotting because the flowers were done blooming with no pollen. Now, there haven't been many yet. Some male flowers are now blooming, but only female flower buds. Is this common when they first start blooming? There are lots more flowers budding. I'm hoping to harvest seeds, too, so would like to hand pollinate at least some of them.

 

Also, has anyone here eaten squash flowers? I heard they are edible, and that you'll still get squash. Do you just eat the male flowers?

 

 

I will admit that I have not grown a lot of winter squash nor most other squash family plants. We had such a battle with it in our region (bacterial wilt and vine borers, not to mention squash bugs -- aaargh!), that I finally determined it wasn't worth the space and effort it took up. However, what you describe sounds very normal to me for a plant which has just begun to flower. I've generally assumed that the plant knows what it's doing, you know? ;) I'm not sure I understand your remark about harvesting seeds and therefore hand pollinating some. Would you offer more explanation, please? As for eating squash flowers - yes, I have! Some people eat only the male flowers, but others pluck the ones with the tiny fruits at the ends because they make for a prettier presentation. Frying in a light batter is typical. Here's a page with other ideas as well.

 

 

HTH,

[Happy]

If they have just started flowering, this is common behavior. They'll catch up as long as you have a decent bee population and/or a decent breeze to move the pollen around.

 

One year I didn't (too enclosed of an area) and had to take a couple of male flowers to hand pollenate the female.

 

Keep them watered well (and keep the water off the leaves to prevent fungus.)

 

Have fun!

[Storm Bay]

Thanks for the replies. Doran, the hand pollinating is if you want to harvest seed and have your different squash/pumpkin varieties in the same area. We bought heirloom seeds so that we could do this. Not just to save money, but also it's a good learning project for our dc. I read that you should tie the female flower just before it's ready to be pollinated, untie it the next day with the male flower, petals removed, in hand to pollinate it without bees, then retie the female flower.

 

We do have enough bees, but I don't want cross pollination. We don't have a large garden & have 2 kinds of squash as well as pumpkins. I'm hoping that the cucumbers won't cause trouble. I won't do this for all the female flowers, just a couple on each plant (more than I need in case something happens and they don't all make it.)

 

This morning I finally hit a combination, but failed to look for bees in the male flowers. Thankfully the bee didn't sting me (must not have connected me with the flower's removal).

 

Thanks also for the recipe link. We tasted a but raw today--ick. But I'm going to try cooking them later this week. It looks like there will be blossoms for a while.