I have a ton of flowers on my squash plants but no fruit. Why is this? Even my Zucc. is the same. I know Zucc. is a prolific plant but I can't seem to be the guy with wheel barrows full of it to give away.

Look at the flowers. Male flowers come on first, sometimes 1-2 weeks earlier than the females. The female flowers have little fruits at their bases.

I was doing some reading about this yesterday. Apparently many varieties of squashes don't need to be pollinated, the female plants develop fruit without pollination, and if they are pollinated, you end up with tough and mis-shapen fruit.

This was in the Encyclopedia of Gardening published by the American Horticultural Society.

Unfortunately, there was just enough information in the book to raise questions, so now I gotta go to the library again...

I had the same problem and I read that the Females maybe were not getting pollinated. I swabbed the pollen from the male flowers and put in on the female. It is obvious which flowers are male vs. female. At that time I had a bunch of males and 1 female.
Then low and behold..I went out a few days later and there was a HUGE squash...Actually, I find squash work that way for me...I swear I don't have any even started, then magically I have a prize winner...I think the leaves hide them alot.
So, I probably would have been OK without pollinating myself.

I have a problem with the female flowers of my pumpkins never opening to become pollinated. They just hang around and eventually turn yellow and fall off. I've forced some open and pollinated them myself using a paintbrush and this seemed to work but is there any other way to solve the problem?

Pumpkin and squash blossoms seem to be sensitive to sunshine, heat and humidity. If you check on them through the day, you'll notice that sometimes they are open and sometimes they are closed.

Mine are usually open when I go out to water first thing in the morning, about 1/2 hour after sunrise. They are usually closed up by 1:00 or so, in the heat of the day, but sometimes I see them open up again in the evening.

Mine are always open early. It's best to pollinate in the morning as the viability declines as the day progresses. Also, I've found that if I wait, the bees will collect all the pollen from the stamen, but haven't necessary deposited enough of it on the stigma, and haven't left me with enough to finish the job.

One bee visit will not usually make a quality squash, because not enough pollen is delivered. There needs to be enough pollen grains for each incipient seed -- and that takes many bee visits.

I haven't had a squash yet either. I have had male blossoms for 2 months now without a single female one. I'm thinking I have all male plants. (dunno if that is possible tho.)

Maybe they're gay? That's what I jokingly say when I see no fems on the squash vines. Be patient - the girls will show up.

I would openly welcome my gay squash plants if they could produce a few little squash of their own. I guess my females are very fashionably late.

I read that sometimes if you transplant squash, it can mess up the male/female flower ratio

can't remember where I read that though

Of all my summer and winter squashes, I believe that thus far, I have one successfully pollinated plant bearing fruit.

I do not know the reason for it. (In my garden, we have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy which seems to have worked thus far.) Somehow, by the end of the season though, there is always enough to harvest.

Wayne

It's hard to outsmart mother nature