For the second year my squash and zucchini plants are healthy and full of blooms. Instead of turning to fruit the bloom just fall off at the base. What am I doing wrong?
Squash and Zucchini problems
It prob isnt hot enuff yet. Male flowers always show up before the females. Reduce watering to 5 days apart and let the plants get some growth. Pictures would help because it shows how the nutrients are being utilized, or the plant is attracting beneficial pollinators...temps up and down are hard on consistency growth..
If you have male and female flowers (small fruit behind the flower) but no fruit is maturing its due to lack of pollination, for whatever reason. You can always hand pollinate.
Here are a couple pics. In the second pic, between the blooms, you can see the end of a stem where the bloom fell off
A bit hi on the nitrogen those plants. Still young.
A bloom falling off is normal especially if it's a male bloom. Its when you have female flowers and they fall off without being pollinated that you have a problem. Most squash, cukes and melons have male flowers before female flowers. Do you see any female flowers?
Here are a couple pics of small round yellow squash forming at the base of the flower. The squash never mature. They fall off. Is this a pollination problem? I see bees in the garden around the cucumber blooms and I see lots of cukes about ready to pick, but not the squash or zucchini.
Earle34,
Heat and pollination are probably the most likely reasons. Give it a little more time and see. Do they get full sun?
For pollination as mentioned above you can hand pollinate male and female flowers. This is best done in the AM.
John
Ditto on the hand pollinating, am getting squash every day since taking over the pollinating duties. Also Kitt and Lisa are right, the male flowers will come first and then the females (fruit bearing) will start to show. I use a tapered paintbrush and swirl it around the inside of the male bloom, then carefully swirl it around the inside of the female bloom. Hopefully by the time you have a lot of female blooms, the bees will have gotten the memo and started doing their job :)
Thanks for all of your help folks. I will try the 'paint brush pollination' thing. That sounds pretty easy. I'll let everyone know the outcome.
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