This time of year the squash is blooming away, but what if that’s all you get? What if all you see on the plant are blooms? The plant is perfectly healthy with no signs of any issues but still isn’t setting fruit. If you have blooms and no squash the answer may be as simple as the type of flowers on the plant!
Why Might Your Squash Plants Not Have Female Flowers Yet?
Squash blossoms are either male or female (monoecious). Often what blooms first are the male flowers. The female flowers typically form later. The female flowers have oval like shapes beneath the flower on the stem. These shapes are the ovaries and what eventually turns into the squash.
It makes sense when you think about it. The male flowers produce first to make sure pollen is available then the female flowers form. Sometimes though you can get a ton of male flowers with no female flowers and that can be frustrating when no squash forms.
How do you Encourage Female Flowers On a Plant?
You really can’t specifically target female flowers but you can pinch off most of the male flowers. By removing the male flowers you force the plant to make more flowers which increases your odds of getting female flowers. The male flowers you remove can be eaten in a salad or stuffed and fried up, indeed they are edible!
Also be sure to fertilize your squash plants with a balanced organic fertilizer. Fertilizer has three letters NPK (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium). Use a fertilizer with a higher P and K than the N. Nitrogen promotes leaf growth and the other two elements are more important for flowering and the overall health of the plant.
How Can You Get The Right Flowers?
When you have blooms and no squash you have to patient. Generally squash plants will start to form the female flowers after the male flowers. I would advise you to plant at least two (or more) squash plants each time you plant, maybe even more which will increase the odds of having both types of squash flowers and give you better production overall. Also plant your squash successively so in the event you have an outbreak of vine borers you have a backup crop coming.
Eventually you may end up with more squash than you really want!
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