Courgette flowers closed up after transplanting

[Sazzyd]

Hi, I’m a first time gardener/veggie grower. I had been growing my courgette in a pot, inside on the window seal and then hardened off in a little plastic greenhouse outside and finally just outside, I was waiting for the frost we had for a few day to pass and then decided to plant out. I removed it from the pot as gently as possible and put it in a very large pot 2 days ago.

when I planted all the flowers were open And the next day they had al shrivelled like this and don’t open all day.

is this normal? Is it the shock of moving?

 

[karstopography]

Seems like the male flowers only open for a few hours in the morning, just the one day and then they are done, dropping off the stems and eventually rotting. That’s just normal behavior for a courgette, what everyone here calls zucchini.

The male flowers have long stems and the female flowers have little squash that are at the base of the flower. A pollinator, like a bee, visits the male, picks up pollen and then transfers it to the female. No pollination, no squash, the female flower essentially dies along with the baby squash.

A fine artist‘s paint brush can accomplish what the bee does, but it needs to happen while the flowers are open.

Some cultures do various culinary things with the excess male blossoms. Fried, stuffed, and worked into other culinary creations. I think the blossoms are very tasty. Just do the pollination before you eat them.

 

[Sazzyd]

Seems like the male flowers only open for a few hours in the morning, just the one day and then they are done, dropping off the stems and eventually rotting. That’s just normal behavior for a courgette, what everyone here calls zucchini.

The male flowers have long stems and the female flowers have little squash that are at the base of the flower. A pollinator, like a bee, visits the male, picks up pollen and then transfers it to the female. No pollination, no squash, the female flower essentially dies along with the baby squash.

A fine artist‘s paint brush can accomplish what the bee does, but it needs to happen while the flowers are open.

Some cultures do various culinary things with the excess male blossoms. Fried, stuffed, and worked into other culinary creations. I think the blossoms are very tasty. Just do the pollination before you eat them.

Thanks for up your advice I didn’t realise they close so quickly, also I’m British hence courgette lol

 

[karstopography]

Thanks for up your advice I didn’t realise they close so quickly, also I’m British hence courgette lol

My wife‘s niece is married to a bloke from Newcastle. He attempts to keep us up to speed on the Queen’s English. I’m not sure why Americans tend to call courgette zucchini. Courgette sounds good to me. Courgette vs. Zucchini is probably like the metric system, most of the world is on that, but the USA clings to the other way.

 

[zigs]

Courgette is French and I think Zucchini is from Italian

 

[DirtMechanic]

Courgette is French and I think Zucchini is from Italian

Of course you would just know that! I had to go find the wiki!

"
NameEdit
In the United States, Australia, English-speaking Canada, Sweden and Germany, the plant is commonly called a zucchini (/zuːˈkiːni/ ( listen); plural: zucchini or zucchinis)[9], from Italian: zucchina ([dzukˈkiːna]; plural: zucchine), diminutive of zucca, "gourd, marrow, pumpkin, squash".

The name courgette (French pronunciation: [kuʁ.ʒɛt]) is a French loan word, the diminutive of courge ("gourd, marrow") and is commonly used in France, Belgium, and other Francophone areas, as well as in the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Africa."

 

[headfullofbees]

If, like me, you do not possess a little paint brush, nor the delicate dexterity required for the operation described by karstopography, which does indeed work, you can do what I do, which is to wait for the female flowers to open, remove the male flower from the plant, tear off the petals, and insert it into the female.
Each male flower can pollinate up to four females.