I forgot to mention something concerning my problems getting early male
kabocha flowers. I developed a theory last summer that my kabochas were
refusing to turn out male flowers early (I believe I posted the problem
in this newsgroup a few years ago and people said it was not a problem
one would expect) because I had been in the habit of always planting
seeds from my own crops. I figured the plants were maybe (this is almost
hypothetical) trying in their own way to hold out for pollen from a
stand of squash other than my own in an attempt to escape the inbreeding
they had been subjected to for a few years.

Indulging this theory, I bought one decent sized kabocha from my local
market this last winter and dried the seeds from it and mixed them with
the others I planted early this March in hopes that at least the plants
from the store-bought kabocha would send out male flowers early. It
didn't seem to work.

Dan