A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 plant flowers. . ...

hey guys quick q here:

When flowers are passing on (dieing). . . do you remove the wilted flower away from the fruit? (zuke/cukes/cantaloupes/squash)? I did so on a few plants thinking that it would pass on a disease from sitting there and dying. . . but i got BER on a few of mmy squash (i think from not pollinating good enuff). Thnx!

I don't pull off the dead blossoms. I just let them do their thing until it's time to eat them. I've never had problems with diseases caused by the blossoms.

I never deadhead and my stuff does fine...

Julianna would know the answer to this question.

Once the flower is dead, you can remove it or not. Doesn't matter. It has done its job. I would leave them though until they have fully wilted. Not sure at what point they become irrelevant but i imagine it's within 24hrs of being pollinated.
BER and not being pollinated are 2 different things. (Though i can see how they appear similar on cucurbits.)