Tiny Squash Plants Blossoming

My squash are small (Zuchinni) and insist on flowering out even though they are very small. Should I pinch off the flowers and make them grow out some more, Biggest leaves on many are not hand sized yet...

Drew

Hmm.... could this be a revival of 'to prune or not to prune'?

I was always taught to pinch off the blooms that have no squash (zucchinni or other squash) because they are the males and they sap the strength of the plant.

Wrong?

If the plants are stunted and stressed, letting them set fruit will slow them down even more. The first flowers are usually male, so they can be pulled off if you want, but if the plants don't look like they'll support fruit when the female flowers come, I'd take them off. You can always toss them into a stir fry.

Do you stir fry the males? I have always thrown those into the compost!

I guess you could, but the males are usually batter fried. A search on Google brought up hundreds (thousands?) of recipes.

Thanks.... shouldnt say male or female but deflowering will occur today!

I've never taken blossoms off summer or winter squash, cukes or melons, etc. And that's 55 years worth of growing veggies. LOL

After all, if you have just male blossoms at first they aren't going to get pollinated anyway, so will die.

The whole scene with tomatoes/blossoms is quite different since they have a different natural life cycle and are totally different plants.

And I'm not going to get into the pruning no pruning issue here since we discuss it in the toamto folder.

But taking blossoms off squash and others in that family? It makes no sense to me at all for the reason I gave above.

Carolyn, who apologizes if you already took them off but only read your comment about this recen tly and I usually don't read this folder. Sigh/

I don't take blossoms off either. After all, they are there to attract pollinators and besides their big bright yellow flowers are a delight to behold in the garden in the evening when I get home from a long day at work. I don't think they will stunt the plant either. Mine all grow even after the blossoms come on.

See, I just find it so funny what I learned about gardening that I took to be the "Way Things Are Done". Its good to see that I can still learn something!LOL!

Yup... I am learning a ton... this is the first year I have been a "Real" gardener on my own... I have done this in the past with my grandparents or at the Universities garden plot but this is the first year I have had my own garden in and really working. I guess there is no "irrefutably correct" thing with veggies but I believe in experience. My grandpa is gone so I cant ask them so you guys are my source. Yes I did take off the squash blossoms so far but I am sure more will come...

I'm still learning too, and I hope I didn't mislead you. I wasn't saying that the flowers needed to be removed if the plant was healthy, but I've had some badly stressed and stunted squash that tried setting fruit but really couldn't support any until the rains picked up, so had to pull females until the plants grew some more. I needed to get some healthy seed back from them. The male flowers really don't need to be pulled but are edible, so you can try some interesting recipes until the female flowers kick in. Then you'll need to leave the males to pollinate the females.

My plants (some of them) are very stressed adn stunted... others are doing well...

The stressed ones are trying to produce offspring before they die. Very stressed vegetable plants such as squash and cukes will make a last ditch effort to procreate. This is why the small plants are blooming I think.

Normally, I wouldn't pinch blooms, but on the stunted plants, I don't think you have anything to lose. It may be better to just pull them up and start over. You still have time for a great harvest, and I don't think it's profitable to try and baby a sick or stressed plant unless it's something that absolutely can't be replaced.

You will get a much better and bigger harvest on plants that are not stunted. The effort to save them will be way more than the harvest could ever be.

Try planting a few hills of new seeds and see if they don't catch the sickly ones pretty quick. It may be a good experiment, and you may add to your gardening knowlege with the comparison.

That is a good idea... I am sort of overplanted now but I really ought to see if I can get some starts from the garden shop.

Starts from the garden shop is probably the worst thing you can get when it comes to squash and cukes. They are already stressed. If you don't get them with just the cotyledons and maybe 1 small true leaf, you'll be getting yourself right back to square 1.(1 week or less from germination)

I would just get a package of seeds. I think you'll have a better harvest at this point.

You can stagger squash plantings all summer, so if it's time to pull out something (bolting lettuce...radishes) plant your squash there if your are pressed for space.

I think the seeds at this time of year will give the best results.

Ditto. Especially this time of year, now that the weather and the ground has warmed up. Or start them in cell packs and set out.

I am good for space, radishes are about done or plant under the Cukes that are going no-where... I agree with you on most squash, melons etc but I have had a very good experience with a winter squash that was big when I bought it (it was bought for me) from the nursery adn it was rather large. Usually however I get the smallest ones I can find. I am just worried about my growing season fizzeling out on me. If it were watermellon I would just give up but I think I can still do something with the cukes. I do understand that if a plant has been in a too small container for too long it will not grow in most cases. (specifically squash, corn, melons and cukes) But I appreciate the input.