Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: ian.ford on July 10, 2010, 14:16
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Hi All. I need some advice on my ever growing butternut squash. They have now started to flower and as the flower dies off the head falls away from the stem. Is this normal and will the squash still grow, or is there something wrong.
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Are you growing just one plant, or several?
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I am growing three plants in separate areas and they all seem to be donig the same thing
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The male flowers drop off whether they've managed to pass on their pollen or not ( 8) ), the female flowers also lose their petals whether they've been fertilised or not.
So not in itself a problem unless the embro fruits have not been pollinated; they swell promisingly for a few days and then rot off from the flower end.
I have "lost" many squashes and courgettes in this way so now do my daily patrol with the little paintbrush to manually pollinate the female flowers. It works fine, the only downside being that you need to be able to do that during the day when the flowers are open!
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The Squash / Courgette / Melon etc. family tend to start flowering with male flowers, so if yours have only just started you may not have any female flowers yet? (The females have a little embryo fruit behind the flower, the male flowers just have a skinny stalk.)