A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 zucchini and squash questions

I have 1 zucchini plant and 3 yellow squash plants. I have gotten 1 zucchini and 5 squash's so far. But as I was watering last night I noticed the zucchini plant just flopped on it side. Looking closer today I see that the plans seem to be growing sideways and not down. The roots don't look very deep. Is there any way to fix this with the plants already in full bloom? There are no more zucchini or squash growing right now (just a squash that is black on the end)
Any kind of advice would be great!
Thanks
sarah

sarah,

sounds like you may have had the same problem i did. though i cant really tell by not actually knowing a lil more detail of your watering habits, fertilizing, and much much more, you may have encountered the dreaded squash bug!



This dude managed to completely devestate my zuchini plant in a matter of days. My plant started off by looking like it was wilting. At the time it was considerably warm where we live, around 95 deg for a good 4-5 days straight. I watered a lil more extra than normal, but it was still wilting bad. Finally had to cut it completely out, and upon doing so i saw that ugly monstrosity of a bug in my plant. I promptly checked out my squash plant and saw the same bugs, and even on my cucumbers! I had no choice but to spray some Seven on them. . . it was a dreaded time of desperation lol

btw, the ones that are shriveled and black on the end, pick off immidiatly. theres no need for the plant to try and fix these, theyre simply not pollinated good enuff (i think this anyways). If you dont have any bees doing their thing in your garden, you'll have to rely on hand pollination. Reply-post if you dunno how to do this, i'll be more than happy to help out, as will anyone else on this godsend of a forum!

thanks for the advice. i actually don't have a bug problem (for now!) we have been getting a LOT of rain lately along with really hot temperatures. I try to water after dark on days we get no rain. I don't overwater though. This is my first garden so the dirt is new that I put in the garden.
Last night we got a lot of rain, about 4 hours straight, and my zucchini and squash plants were blown over again. I went out today and got some stakes to put next to them to prevent them from blowing over again. I am not sure if that will even help or is necessary.
Bu to sum it up, I have really just let the plants grow on their own and haven't really tried to do any extra pollination, but I would like to know how to do that for the future!
Thanks!
Sarah

pretty much you peel male flowers petals off and stick the stamen into the female flower and giver a twist (rub the pollen into the female)

female = a flower with a pod behind the flower petals. Very small in size, but distinguishable.

males = a flower with just the stem behind it. clearly a difference between the males & females.