In message , Nick Maclaren
writes

In article ,
Pam Moore writes:
| On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 12:40 +0100 (BST), (Steve
| Harris) wrote:
|
| I'll be glad of any ideas also. My courgettes are fruiting fine, but
| my pumpkin has about 5ft of stem but all male flowers; no sign of
| fruit.

A very common problem, especially in low temperatures and sometimes
with drought. The cucurbits most people have heard of need heat in
roughly the following order:

Marrows/courgettes (OK for most summers)
Pumpkins and related squashes
Hubbards and related squashes
Butternut (at this point it gets seriously tricky)
Most melons
Watermelon (don't bother in the UK)

Or even in Belgium. If you have space there is some chance with the
latter under glass with suitable watering regimes. But in general
anything past pumpkins outdoors in the UK is pretty risky. That said I
already have several at grapefruit size and courgettes of both yellow
and green varieties.

I reckon the plants produce male flowers when they are mature enough to
flower but still too immature to make expensive female fruits. Mine
always have all male flowers for a while before the first females. And
the earliest fruits usually succumb to blossom end rot, slugs or both.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown