problem with some zucchini

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Permalink Reply by Ericka Cero Wood on May 14, 2009 at 9:27am

Might not have gotten pollinated, or the heat just freaked them. If you are just starting to get fruit, don't worry. Ours did this last year and then all of a sudden-BOOM! giants appeared overnight.

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Permalink Reply by Sara Placey on May 14, 2009 at 9:55am

How large are these zucchini getting? We have zucchinis as well and were having problems with some of them shriveling up after they got to a certain size so we looked into it and I read that sometimes if the fruit is not pollinated that is what will happen. A book suggested that we pollinate them ourselves to be sure they are indeed getting pollinated, by taking the male flower (the ones with no fruit), peeling back the flower part and placing the stamen in the female flower (the one with the fruit). So far it has been helping and we've gotten some rather large zucchinis compared to last year.

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Permalink Reply by Michelle on May 14, 2009 at 10:58am

I have been having the same problem. I remember this happened occasionally last Fall but after a while I got some zucchinis that grew to a good size. I am not sure why this happens either and hope someone knows! :)

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Permalink Reply by Rene Schnog on May 14, 2009 at 11:21am

I've had the same issue, how large are they before they stop growing, mine seem to have stopped at about 5" or so.

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Permalink Reply by Roxanne F on May 14, 2009 at 11:33am

Exactly around 5". I am surprised you get any vegetable at all if they aren't pollinated. They are planted very close to a fish pond and seem to have lots of insects around the water so I assumed pollination wasn't a problem but maybe it is. We have a lot of tomatoes so I know some pollinating is going on.

When we took the gardening class this year they said that last year for some reason bees wouldn't pollinate the zucchini maybe we are having the same problem this year.

I guess I wll try hand pollinating and see if that helps.

Thanks for all of the responses.

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Permalink Reply by Barbara Middleton on May 14, 2009 at 12:26pm

We always hand pollinate our squash, cannot depend upon ants, bees, etc. It works best early in the morning.

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Permalink Reply by Roxanne F on May 14, 2009 at 2:37pm

Thanks for the info I have lots of squash and cucumber blossoms right now. Would you also hand pollinate cucumbers, melons and pumpkin?

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Permalink Reply by grrlscout on May 14, 2009 at 3:37pm

I've seen tons of ants on my melon blossoms. But I think I'll hedge my bets and do some hand-pollination. I found good instructions for melon hand-pollination here:

http://www.mybalconyjungle.com/hand_pollination.html

I read elsewhere that melons blossom a little later in the morning. From what I've seen, that's true. I usually go out there around 6:30-7:00 in the morning, and they're still closed up.

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Permalink Reply by Barbara Middleton on May 14, 2009 at 8:41pm

That's a cool website! Thanks for mentioning it. I was just looking at his other topics and one of them is about self-watering containers (basically two Home Depot buckets). This intrigues me. Part of the problem with container gardening for me is the frequent watering (well, besides perhaps the sizzling temperatures that kill everything but succulents over the summer- but if you ignore that...) If we miss a watering, the plant dies. If we water too much, the plant drowns, even in the hot summer temps I find that I've overwatered and the roots rot or maybe they boil, who knows. Anyway, I might try this.... Thanks for the lead.
Barb

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Permalink Reply by Michele on May 14, 2009 at 6:41pm

Incomplete pollination is probably the cause of your zucchini problem and the best defense is hand pollination like the others have suggested.

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Permalink Reply by Roxanne F on May 15, 2009 at 8:04am

When I went out this morning to try to hand pollinate I found itty bitty ant like bugs deep in all of the flowers.

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Permalink Reply by Mary Hysong on May 23, 2009 at 6:54am

It's hard to tell how big they are in the pic. How old are they? If they are just a couple days since the blossom, then probably they weren't pollinated. Older than a few days from flower, then maybe too hot/dry?

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