lofty
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pumpkin and squash pollinationi seem to have a problem with some of my pumpkin and squash varieties. i know the weather at the minute is not great but the fruit are dropping off. I have read that this could be down to pollination but i know that there is some of our bees that swarmed in a tree just above them. Has anybody any thoughts or is anybody suffering the same problems
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quarryman
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I would take a guess that if there are plenty of bees and pollination has taken place then it might be over watering and not enough ventilation.
If there is not enough drainage, hold off the watering for a week and just use a foliage feed then resume watering but not quite as much.
It happened to me and I found that there was a hard pan of soil a few inches below where I had dug, this held all the excess water so I built the beds up higher and that worked.
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admin
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Hi Lofty , when you say the prob is with "some" , is that some specific varieties or just some of the overall number ? If it is by variety you might get specialist info from a google search such as "grow ( variety name ) ".
If it is more general , at what sort of size is the fruit when it drops ?
If it is only the immature fruit ( the identifiable bulge ) to which the flower is attached then it is probably poor pollination . If the bit ( female bit , can't remember name and too lazy to look it up at this time of day ) .. which pokes out of the middle of the flower .. if that is uniformly coloured then chances are it wasn't pollinated even if the petals have folded back around themselves . Even at quite a late stage you can gently tear or unfold the petals and pollinate by snapping off the ? stamen from a male flower and rubbing it directly onto the female . Be sure to rewrap the petals or rain will get in and cause rot at the end of the fruit .........
.......... and if the petals stay on for too long after pollination the rot underneath them causes the whole of the maturing fruit to discolour and drop . With just a little experience you can judge the time to remove the petals from the fruit after pollination but before any rot . They should come away quite easily , like a crown , with a gentle snap and leave a light green "natural" scar rather than a tear . Sorry to bang on . HTH . 
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lofty
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It is turk turban and jaspee du vende (not sure of the spelling). The weather is probably not condusive to pollination i know bees tend not to operate in wet weather which might actually be the problem with the overwatering. i think we need a bit of summer badly
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EGirl
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Thanks for that. I have a lovely planter full of gorgeous mixed squash & pumpkins & exactly that has been happening. One question, how d'you know which flower is male & which female....?
Armed with little paintbrush so ready to go... 
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blowin
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Male flowers tend to come first . Someone told me this is so that the bees have already found the plant before it invests its energy in producing the more valuable females . Don't know whether that is true but I will go for it .
The male flower stem is roughly the same thickness all the way to the petals at the top . The female stem has a distinct bulge just below where the petals are attached . It looks like a minature version of the vegetable itself , which is indeed what it is ! . Good luck .
PS Any surplus male flowers -- dip in light batter and flash-fry . Supposed to be very nice but never got around to it myself .
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