It's in a greenhouse so that makes sense. How do I go about hand pollinating them?
When you have both male and female flowers open, use a Q tip and transfer pollen from male to female (the one with the mini zucchini below the flower). Best time to do it is early in the morning before flowers close.
How polite. If the flowers are close enough I just smoosh them together (gently of course).
Yeah lol- when I’m pollinating pumpkins or squash I straight up decapitate the male flowers and just rub them all over the females.
Savage! I like it
Then you stuff the male flower with something like goat cheese — I like vegan ricotta — and some herbs, and fry them in tempura batter.
This is the way.
lol, this meme, you made my day 😂
💀 cackling trying not to wake up my dog
LOL perfect meme for this situation
Ok, I’m outta my mind with anxiety about what’s happening in US, but this just made me laugh. I thank you, it was much needed.🙏
And if you ain't bashful.. a finger works as well. 😊
Hey there, this is a family-friendly show... 🫨
How do I know which is male and female?
Look at the stem and base of the flower. There’s a picture here
Female has fruit, male is just a flower
I use a small paint brush. Same concept, but it has a little better of reach and is reusable/washable
This is the answer. Was just typing the same thing.
I have this problem, but the female flowers never open so I can pollinate them. Had that issue with both my pumpkins and zucchini. I’m stumped.
They close when the day gets hot. Try getting out there earlier maybe? We pollinate around 8 am and by 9 or 10 the flowers have closed up
I have been, they just never open, maybe in Florida it just never gets cool enough to open? Even nights are in the mid 80s
I had that problem before where the female flowers would never open and then turn yellow and die before they ever opened. I've read that it might be too much nitrogen. The plant looked healthy with big leaves and lots of male flowers but could never get a pumpkin.
Try buying them a drink, ask them what kinds of movies they like…
Just like most women throughout my life, they’re not very responsive.
If the flowers look big enough that they should have already opened, you can try and very gently open the female flower just barely enough to get q-tip in.
Play some Barry White
I have been doing this but at night, does it not work as well ? Should I be wanking my courgettes in the morning instead?
It helps to wait until they're in the mood
They didn’t pollinate
Some of those look like they got big enough to have bloomed and others don't. It could be one or more of three things. A. A calcium deficiency in the soil, in my experience the least common but not unheard of in zucchini.
B. Not being pollinated, for my zucchini earlier in the season I've had to go as far as opening female flowers that haven't bloomed and pollinating by hand for early in the season. By mid to late season the female flowers actually would fully bloom and pollinators were present.
C. Squash bugs. Sometimes squash bugs will bite the fruit itself before it even has a chance to bloom and be pollinated.
You could take a shotgun approach and check for or make corrections for all three or just try hand pollinating and see if that makes a difference then work your way through until you find the culprit.
Wait are y’all telling me the reason I only have ONE squash fruit and nothing else but male flowers is because they weren’t pollinated?!
I thought if there was a squash bud behind it it was just good to go 😑
Don't feel bad. I just figured this out this year also and I've been growing zucchini for 5 or 6 years now. I always assumed once you saw a little bud behind the flower it meant that it was pollinated, but it turns out that the female flower will eventually just start producing a bit of the fruit even if it's not pollinated yet. But if it's not pollinated it will die off like in your pictures.
Oh my god what the hell lol 😂
I guess I need to go out side and pollinate some stuff right now lol
You will not get a fruit until you have pollinated a female flower with the pollen from a male flower. If there are all male flowers, no fruit. If there are all female flowers, no fruit. If there are no ants to pollinate, and you have not manually pollinated, no fruit.
But there’s ants all over it. And bees.
You have one fruit because there was only one female flower. Male flowers will not produce a fruit.
I understood that but I actually had THREE females. Only one got pollinated and it wasn’t by me. I didn’t know I had to
You don't have too. You will just know they got pollinated of you do. This practice is especially important if you or your neighbors spray anything to kill bugs in the yard.
My stuff looks like this. My entire back yard is huge and fenced in and my neighbors can’t get in (not that they would-they have a proper little garden with chickens in their backyard).
This is all to say I only thought when it fruited meant it was already pollinated, not that it needed pollinating. lol it’s my first time
Fences don't stop pesticide, it sounds like that isn't your problem though.
The fruit starts growing from the beginning, behind the female flower. If the flower doesn't get pollen from a male it will rot. That's what we see in the OP.
Some people are mentioning nutrient deficiency, but that tends to have additional indications. Start by making sure your females get male pollen. If they keep rotting after that, look into checking the soil.
Look there’s no way they could do it. My neighbors can’t even reach over our fence and they themselves are up on a hill.
And yes I understand what part is the fruit.
I was not telling you what the fruit is, I was telling you how the fruit grows.
I'm not accusing your neighbors. When your neighbors spray things to kill bugs, it naturally lowers the amount of bugs all around. Killing pollinators is what prompts humans to manually pollinate their plant, that's the only reason I mentioned it.
Poor pollination. Also, I pick the flowers off once they start wilting, don't know if that helps or not 🤷♀️
Can I use one male flower to pollinate multiple females?
Yes, I’ve heard 3-4
Thanks for posting. I tried growing in my greenhouse this year due to squash bugs and same thing happened to me.
Also looks like aphids in the first pic?
There’s a method of growing your squash as a “tree”. You’d basically cut the lower leaves off and tie it to a post. I’ve seen it on YT but just didn’t have the motivation to do it yet.
Yes I’ve tried growing my squash and Zuc upright. It’s kind of a pain because the vines aren’t really designed so needs good support and attention.
My main issue has been rampant squash bugs. It progressed over the last 5/6 years to the point that I haven’t even grown then the last 2-3 seasons. Just not worth the fight.
I’ve been using birds as my pest control and so far it’s been working. So far.
Actually a lot of veggies will do this, the most common is tomatoes. Just get some fertilizer meant for veggies asap. There is nothing you can do for the current ones, but the new ones will look normal. Supposedly it kills the flavor, but I have found if it is a small part it tastes fine.
Huh? It’s clearly un-pollinated and aborted zukes. The plant reabsorbs them. OP needs to transfer pollin from male flower and/or increase pollinators using native flowers.
Supposedly kills the flavor??? What is it even saying in that sentence??? That the rotten part lost its flavor, or that fertilizer kills flavor?
Truly impossible to know.
Happened with my squash. Remove every veggie that's already growing and use crushed tums and any eggshells. Took mine 3 weeks to produce non rotting squash, and they grew large. Also get some snapdragon plants around them for pollinators..as they attract every type around in droves.
That's funny...I happened to plant snal dragons and have some blooming even but I am getting all bugs but pollinators.
This is not blossom end rot. And if it were, tums would work but eggshells will not. The calcium in crushed eggshells is not bioavailable until it’s broken down (microbially, not mechanically) in the soil or compost.
Inconsistent watering and calcium deficiency will cause this
Blossom end rot. They need calcium. Crush up some eggshells and put them on the soil before watering. Make sure you’re not over watering as it will dilute calcium in the soil which can contribute to
Calcium powder mixed in water is far faster unless you powder the egg shells they don't do alot
Yea you have to grind eggshells Itty bitty and then even maybe sit them in apple cider vinegar for a day...otherwise it could take years for eggshells to break down enough in the dirt.
I dry out and grind up egg shells shells and till that into my dirt with compost once a year.
They’re not pollinated! Try hand pollinating them in the mornings.