Courgettes and similar problems
 

I'm growing:

Courgette: "Zucchini"
Butternut Squash: (from Argentina via Tesco)
Cobnut

There have been very few flowers and all(?) of them male. The female
bits get to about an inch and wither.

They are in nice composty ground, fed, watered and sunny.

I don't think it's just the lousy summer as I've seen huge courgettes on
the allotments about 1/4 mile away.

Ideas?

Steve Harris - Cheltenham - Real address steve AT netservs DOT com
A useful bit of gardening software at http://www.netservs.com/garden/

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)

Whether that is YOUR problem or not is another matter ....


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 12:40 +0100 (BST), (Steve
Harris) wrote:

I'm growing:

Courgette: "Zucchini"
Butternut Squash: (from Argentina via Tesco)
Cobnut

There have been very few flowers and all(?) of them male. The female
bits get to about an inch and wither.

They are in nice composty ground, fed, watered and sunny.

I don't think it's just the lousy summer as I've seen huge courgettes on
the allotments about 1/4 mile away.

Ideas?

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.

Pam in Bristol

In article , Steve
Harris writes
I'm growing:

Courgette: "Zucchini"
Butternut Squash: (from Argentina via Tesco)
Cobnut

There have been very few flowers and all(?) of them male. The female
bits get to about an inch and wither.

They are in nice composty ground, fed, watered and sunny.

I don't think it's just the lousy summer as I've seen huge courgettes on
the allotments about 1/4 mile away.

Male flowers - just a flower
Female flowers - like the male, but they have an embryo squash on the
back. And presumably the sexual bits are different - I haven't looked
that closely.

To encourage cross pollination, they tend to produce males flowers
earlier and female flowers later (though overlapping).

a) Patience
b) when you have an undoubted female flower, take a male flower which
has abundant pollen, and stuff it nose down into the female flower.
--
Kay
"Do not insult the crocodile until you have crossed the river"

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