Some Issues With My Squash

I've got three pretty healthy zephyr squash plants and they're starting to produce. However, I only seem to be able to get one squash to develop at a time. I'm harvesting them at the appropriate size (not waiting for them to get too big), and I'd anticipated that I'd have a "rolling harvest" with smaller squash developing as the bigger ones got harvested. However, they seem to be only growing one at a time. Any smaller squash shrivel and fall off if there is ever a "dominant" squash fruit growing. Then I have to wait (a week or so) for another new female bud to develop from scratch. For instance, if there are two (about the same size) on the same plant, one will inevitably shrivel and die off.

Any suggestions?

G.

Man, that's a bummer. Wish I had an answer for you other than more plants. I supposed you could try a compost tea watering or top dressing to see if the plants just can't take up enough nutrients in the current planting mix to support more than one fruit at a time. But be careful, you can overfertilize as well and get all plant and no blossoms.

Kay

That's actually been my experience with squash most of the time. Usually I have one or rarely two squash on each plant at a time, and only after I harvest it does the plant open more female flowers. However! I currently have six squash on two plants (two on one plant and all it's unopened flowers are female, and FOUR on the other!). I did two things differently to these squash that may have caused them to do this. One method I don't recommend but the other I do.

The first thing I did was I cut the vines open, lol. They were both being attacked by SVB, so I did surgery on them to remove the little beasts. This may have shocked the plants into thinking they were going to die and made them want to reproduce as quickly as possible.

The second thing I did was I topdressed the open wounds with a mound of compost! This is something simple and easy you can try, and even if it doesn't make your plants produce more squash, at least it won't hurt either.

Hasselback - Are you sure it is not a pollination problem. If the females are not getting pollinated, they will shrivel and fall off.

yolos wrote:Hasselback - Are you sure it is not a pollination problem. If the females are not getting pollinated, they will shrivel and fall off.

+1