rile wrote:
Once again the dreaded zucchini has stumped me. I did an all out
effort to thwart the vine borer and might have succeeded. Now, other
problems are cropping up.
I think I'll have to hand pollinate the plants. One plant has all
kinds of blossoms and has had them for several weeks but no fruit.
That plant grew from seed from last year's harvest. Is it possible
that it will only produce male flowers? When I do hand pollinate, do I
have to do it from one plant to another or can I do it within one
plant?
Another plant that did produce one zucchini has another problem. It
keeps looking very wilted. We have had 5 or 6 days of about 90 degree
temps and at one time, it looked so bad I thougt the vine borer did get
it. After watering, it seemed to come out of it but looked bad the
next day. Also, some of the stalks seem to be dying off with the
leaves turning brown. I noticed that some of the dirt around the base
had eroded it away. Would this cause the wilting problem?

The wilted plant got blight. Take it out and burn it or throw it in the
trash. It got infected by cucumber beetles, which next year you can
control with an occasional pesticide spray (I started using rotenone
this year, and so far no damage).

You can see yourself if the plant is producing male flowers only. Males
are on a thin stem, females are on a thick bulbous stem. If you see
males only, eat the blooms with abandon since the flowers are so much
better than the zucs. If you see females as well, you got a pollination
problem. You can pollinate within the same plant.