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#61951 Jun 9th, 2007 at 07:31 AM
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I have several squash plants that are doing great, they are big and green and loads of blooms. The problem that I'm having is the squash will start to grow and will get about 4-5 inches longs and then start to shrivel up. They look like giant yellow raisins!!! Does anyone have any idea why they are doing this?


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What I've heard about squash is that you only want to have 3 or so female blooms on each fine. The squash are really heavy feeders.

What kind of soil did you plant them in?


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Sounds like lack of pollinatin. Usally what happens when they dont get pollinated.

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Originally Posted by DeepCreekLake
Sounds like lack of pollinatin. Usally what happens when they dont get pollinated.


Agreed with Deep here, its my own personal experience. I had to wait for the male flowers to pop, and manually pollinate all the females. them lazy males i tell you. . .

Danno #62544 Jun 10th, 2007 at 10:03 AM
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How do you tell the difference between male and female flowers?


Monica

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Female flowers will have the actual fruit(at early stage looks like a pod) behind the flower. Males are just a flower with a little stem behind it. QUITE distinguishable.

Last edited by Danno; Jun 10th, 2007 at 12:19 PM.
Danno #62718 Jun 10th, 2007 at 06:36 PM
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Next year plant a few more plants. I have found that helps.

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Lots of plants only help if you have a few bees around.

Gardenfairy take a male flower and push it into the female flower, this is pollinating by hand, I had to do this quite a lot last year and my squash were better.


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I had read somewhere that bees are getting fewer and fewer and that this is going to be a problem for gardners. Is this what's going on here? It seems I have plenty of bees around.



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It may just be too early, the bees that usally pollinate them are probably not out and about just yet. Once the zuchinnis come on, they grow and set fruits faster than you can eat them! Some people do hand pollinate, you could use a brush if you dont want to cut up the flowers, or use the males flower itself, after you hand pollinate- use them to fry up- there delicous!

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Thanks!!! I will try to hand pollinate!!


Monica

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Dragging up an old thread here but I've been having to hand pollinate my squash so far this year. The squash were forming then turning black. Yesterday was the first time I saw bees out there.



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I saw a bee today he was crawling on the ground, I thought this is so weird


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