Pumpkin flowers

[chris]

I had a marble sized fruit behind a flower (so guessing that was a female) - no other flowers on my crown princes- now the female flower is dying off, and loads of males are showing their heads - none open yet.

What's the ratio of male:female flowers? Am I likely to get more, do I just leave the plant to trail on more? Was really excited to see it, bit put back by seeing it just dying off!

[ecoprincess]

You'll get more, I'm sure! I felt like that first time I grew pumpkins but I got a good few female flowers came out and pollinated

[ginger ninger]

It's a great feeling when you get your first squash/pumpkin, I never get feed up of seeing them grow. The answer to your question is you'll have lot's more Pumpkins.

[chris]

Thanks Both - GN these are from the seeds that you sent me Really excited, have never tasted CP before so hoping the work out ok!

[SMT]

Hey chris,

You will get some more females appearing at some point. There are many more male flowers to females usually.

A tip for next time is keep some fresh male flowers in the fridge in a glass of water. That'll give you an extra chance of having some male flower to pollinate the female with. Hope it helps.

[womble]

A tip for next time is keep some fresh male flowers in the fridge in a glass of water. That'll give you an extra chance of having some male flower to pollinate the female with. Hope it helps.

Good tip, does that make them last longer then?

I say, try to plant at least two squash, so you double your chance of pollinating.

[SMT]

Good tip, does that make them last longer then?

Yes it should keep the pollen fresh for atleast an extra day or two.

I agree with the extra squash plant too. If you had plenty of room you could simply grow a small plant just for flower production. Keeping it on the dry side will force it to produce flowers. Not ideal if you wanted to grow squashes directly on the plant.

[w33blegurl]

My pumpkins are being a bit like this too. All the male flowers open on one day, then the next day once all the males have shut up shop suddenly a load of female flowers open. Hopefully they will coincide at some point!!!

[chris]

I've two next to each other - in a hope that this would happen, but the other one it a bit behind the other!

One Male is almost ready, so I'll nip it off and do the fridge tip - thanks.

[hamsterhead]

Having read the posts and the blogs are you telling me that I have to pollinate the flowers as they can't do it themselves! I didn't realise I would have to interfere like this. Perils of being a new "grow you owner" I suppose

[taff]

At the start of rowing, you usually have a female flower with no males or vice versa. If you wanted to ensure that the first ones actually survived to grow into pumpkins, then you'd pollinate by hand as above, or if you wanted to save seed from that particular variety. Otherwise, you can leave them alone to do it by themsleves. I do.

[maytreefrannie]

I left the pumpkin to do its own pollinating last year and it worked fine.

This year, I'm using seeds I saved from last year's one and so far, no flowers.