Re: Squash not producing

shannon1 6/28/2011, 2:47 am

@RC I was having the same problem the males and females rarely bloomed together. What worked for me was to pick the male flowers early in the morning just after they bloomed and tapped the pollen into a small plasic bag. When the female bloomed the next morning I tapped the pollen from the bag onto the pestal of the female flower. The longest I waited was 2 days so I am not sure how long pollen will keep. I does need to be kept cool (not cold) till you use it.

TheVickster 6/28/2011, 3:45 am

Garden State - thank you sooooo much for the great pics and link!

Very helpful. I'm going to look for a paint brush now . . . then back to bed. sawing logs

Reverend Curlee 6/29/2011, 1:13 am

@ Shannon1. Thanks. Great Idea. I'll try it.

Hyzleyes 6/30/2011, 9:14 am

Yay! After weeks of only seeing male flowers, I noticed a female flower yesterday. Thought it might open this morning, so I checked, but only a male open again. I saved some pollen on a qtip in a ziplock in case the female opens tomorrow. Does anyone know more specifically how I should store it? Is the a/c in the house cool enough? Is the fridge too cold? Also saw another very small female flower. Yay! Maybe I'll get a couple zucchini off this plant after all!

Reverend Curlee 7/5/2011, 10:03 am

Just hand pollinated my first Zucchini! I had a Male and Female Blossom this AM. So I picked the Male, peeled back the petals and used natures paintbrush to pollinate the Female. I have a second Female Blossom on my plant now as well. Thanks again to everyone for a GREAT forum!

RC

MarcyG 7/5/2011, 10:26 am

i've also been hand pollinating every morning. I have lots of male flowers on my Zuc and lots of female on my yellow squash. today I finally have some cucumber flowers so I used my lil paint brush in all of them also.. Smile

Reverend Curlee 7/10/2011, 11:05 am

Here are some pics of my Zucchinis. Picked the big one today. The smaller one looks as if it's growing and I hand pollinated a third blossom today.

The second Zucchini is on the left and the third is just to the right with the blossom still open.

RC

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Squash not producing