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  • #1

    Help needed with my squash, please

    Hi there,

    As the user name suggests, I am new to this whole gardening business. My girlfriend is the real (and professional gardener), but after she grew some spaghetti squash in our garden last year, I sort of got hooked on looking after the plants and enjoying watching them grow (and eating a bumper crop).

    This year I have had a crack at growing my own squashes: one red kuri squash plant and three musquee de provence squash plants. I planted them out in mid-June after propagating them indoors (as per the instructions on the seed packets). The plants themselves have grown well - I am training the red kuri up a home-made frame, while the musquee de provence (MDP) I've left on the ground (because of the expected size of the fruit) and they have grown several vines extending up to approx 10 feet. However: the red kuri is only now producing (still closed) female flowers, and only two male flowers have opend so far. The MDP hasn't flowered yet at all - all its embryonic flowers are male, with no females in sight. The leaves are healthy, no powdery mildew etc. I am feeding the plants weekly with a standard fruit and veg feed from my local garden centre.

    So my question is: have I done anything obvious wrong, is it too late to expect any fruit this year from the MDP, and is there anything I can do to encourage flowering?

    Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions!
    Tags: pumpkins, squash
  • #2
    Welcome to the vine.

    I don't think you have done anything wrong. Squash and related plants always produce male flowers first. If you can see some female flowers you just need to be patient and they will open. I don't think it's too late for the fruit to develo. I have two different varieties of Butternut squash. One, Hawk, has set some fruit but the other, Early, has yet to do so. They do grow at an alarming rate once they have set.

    Best of luck.
    Gardening requires a lot of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. Lou Erickson, critic and poet

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    • #3
      If I were you, I'd get some flower feed to encourage more flowers to form.

      Uchiki Kuri is Cucurbita maxima and MdP is C moschata so they cannot pollinate each other, which may have helped. Good luck!

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      • #4
        Originally posted by roitelet View Post
        Welcome to the vine.

        I don't think you have done anything wrong. Squash and related plants always produce male flowers first. If you can see some female flowers you just need to be patient and they will open. I don't think it's too late for the fruit to develo. I have two different varieties of Butternut squash. One, Hawk, has set some fruit but the other, Early, has yet to do so. They do grow at an alarming rate once they have set.

        Best of luck.
        Thanks roitelet, I appreciate the welcome and the speedy reply :-)

        Unfortunately, it's only on the kuri plant that there are any female flowers, and these are still tiny and haven't blossomed yet. On my three other plants (MDP), there are only tiny male flowers which haven't really developed in the last 2 weeks - certainly not anywhere near blossoming. I'm adding some pictures to provide a better idea:

        Click image for larger version Name: Squash plants 31 July.jpg Views: 1 Size: 485.4 KB ID: 2374180

        ^ Here is the squash patch, with my very amateurish frame. As you can see, no visible flowers anywhere.

        Click image for larger version Name: two must developed female flowers on the kuri.jpg Views: 1 Size: 360.5 KB ID: 2374181

        ^ These are the two most mature female flowers on the kuri plant.

        Click image for larger version Name: MDP flowers.jpg Views: 1 Size: 522.9 KB ID: 2374182

        ^ And this is the state of play with all the MDP plants. Small, undeveloped male flowers.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by Thelma Sanders View Post
          If I were you, I'd get some flower feed to encourage more flowers to form.

          Uchiki Kuri is Cucurbita maxima and MdP is C moschata so they cannot pollinate each other, which may have helped. Good luck!
          Thanks Thelma, I will certainly get some flower feed.

          Yes, I realised it was probably a bit ambitious to grow two different varieties. Though seeing as I've had only two blossoming flowers so far, the chance of any kind of pollination would be a fine thing indeed ;-)

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          • #6
            Hi Somerset Newbie, I'm growing squash for the first time. I'm growing Blue Kuri. At first, I got really excited when I saw the beginnings of two small squash growing... until it dawned on me that I had no male flowers. By the time the male flowers finally opened, masses of them, there were no female flowers to pollinate. Good news though; the situation eventually righted itself and now I have lots of both. Once they get into the swing of things they really start to take off. Definitely wishing I build a larger frame but live and learn...

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            • #7
              Originally posted by Yasai View Post
              Hi Somerset Newbie, I'm growing squash for the first time. I'm growing Blue Kuri. At first, I got really excited when I saw the beginnings of two small squash growing... until it dawned on me that I had no male flowers. By the time the male flowers finally opened, masses of them, there were no female flowers to pollinate. Good news though; the situation eventually righted itself and now I have lots of both. Once they get into the swing of things they really start to take off. Definitely wishing I build a larger frame but live and learn...
              Thanks Yasai, I'm maybe just worrying too much. I must admit I've become a bit obsessed with my squash, hence the massively long posts about them ;-) I'll just let nature take its course (with a bit of a helping hand in terms of pruning, feeding, etc.) and see what happens.

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              • #8
                Your plants look very healthy, and seeing as you're in the English Riviera, you have plenty of time left - I'm certain you'll get some fruit developing soon.
                He-Pep!

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by bario1 View Post
                  Your plants look very healthy, and seeing as you're in the English Riviera, you have plenty of time left - I'm certain you'll get some fruit developing soon.
                  Thanks bario1! The English Riviera, haha! Never heard it described as that before :-) It's felt positively autumnal here the last week or so, though finally some nice sunshine today.

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                  • #10
                    Technically the English Riviera is just the Torquay area... but I like to think of the whole of the Southwest as fuzzy and warm - I know from personal experience that it's not always like that though!
                    He-Pep!

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                    • #11
                      An update on my struggling squash:

                      My red kuri has really taken off, with three small set fruit and plenty of male and female flowers (see pic below).

                      Click image for larger version Name: red kuri plant happily flowering.jpg Views: 1 Size: 211.9 KB ID: 2374451


                      Alas, my Musquee de Provence is still struggling, with not a single flower, despite plenty of feed. I have now also used a potash treatment, scattered windfalls round the root, and even incorporated some chopped banana skins into the soil around the roots to try and up the potassium levels.

                      The really weird thing is that despite no male flowers having blossomed, the vines have started producing female buds, as you can see in the pic below. I've lost any real hope of a crop this year, with my thoughts already turning to next year and all the things I'm going to do differently...

                      Click image for larger version Name: Tiny female flower bud on MdP.jpg Views: 1 Size: 112.7 KB ID: 2374452

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                      • #12
                        That's an interesting idea, adding chopped banana skins.

                        I add lots of banana skins to Dalek compost bins with the hope of upping the potassium levels, but I don't know how quickly the nutrients would be released if applied more directly. Might give this a try

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                        • #13
                          Will they eat apples? Seriously thinking though,I worry about what insects you might attract with them,maybe bury them away from flies & wasps? Would the kuri flowers pollinate the musquee flowers?
                          Location : Essex

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                          • #14
                            In similar desperation, I hand-pollinated butternut squash female flowers with courgette males. That was a couple of weeks ago. The fruit are now about 20 cm long.

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                            • #15
                              This reminds me of a few years ago when I had a Black Futsu plant with a female flower but no male flowers. I had some Orange Hungarian squash plants of the same species, although they look very different, (Cucurbita moschata) but they didn't have any male flowers either. And there was a Hokkaido plant nearby with male flowers but they are a different species (C. maxima).

                              These two species have been known to hybridise but it seems to be rare and is probably helped by science. So I was excited when the Futsu flower actually set a fruit, thinking I would get some very interesting seeds. When I eventually cut the squash open it did have seeds, but I was disappointed to find they were all hollow shells. Not one of them was viable.

                              So it looks as if the different species can pollinate each other well enough to set fruit, and cross-pollination is certainly worth a try if it's the only way to get a squash, but maybe not so easy to get seeds for some experimental plant breeding.

                              But yours is a different cross, Snoop, with C. pepo instead of C. maxima, so I'll be very interested to know if you get different results.

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