Spaghetti Squash

[kribensis12]

Hello,
I'm 23, but I do have quite a bit of gardening experience. That being said, I started my garden this year with spaghetti squash - 3 to be exact. My wife and I love it and I thought it'd be great to grow and store for the winter!

Once the first plant bloomed, I did see 1 small squash. The day after, it was gone. Since then, all three plants have bloomed and grown quickly, but all of their blooms seem to "shrivel" up as if they were never properly pollinated.

I went out this morning to attempt to pollinate them myself and I saw tons of bugs inside of the flowers which would lead me to believe that they are being pollinated.

The plants get plenty of sun and water and have shown no signs of distress. I really need to see some squashes soon so that it has time to actually grow them!

Any suggestions on what else I can do?

 

[Chuck]

Hello,
I'm 23, but I do have quite a bit of gardening experience. That being said, I started my garden this year with spaghetti squash - 3 to be exact. My wife and I love it and I thought it'd be great to grow and store for the winter!

Once the first plant bloomed, I did see 1 small squash. The day after, it was gone. Since then, all three plants have bloomed and grown quickly, but all of their blooms seem to "shrivel" up as if they were never properly pollinated.

I went out this morning to attempt to pollinate them myself and I saw tons of bugs inside of the flowers which would lead me to believe that they are being pollinated.

The plants get plenty of sun and water and have shown no signs of distress. I really need to see some squashes soon so that it has time to actually grow them!

Any suggestions on what else I can do?

What do the bugs look like?

 

[Doelman]

Not all bugs in flowers are pollinators. Do you know the difference between the male and female flowers on squash plants? I like to hand pollinate all my squash, only takes a few minutes but I only have 4 plants.

 

[kribensis12]

Thanks for the replies.

I have not really seen many female flowers on the squash plants; mostly Male.

As far as bugs go, I have seen squash bugs on my tomato plants (which are producing like CRAZY) but I have not actually seem them on the squash plants, nor have I see any leaf damage on the plants. I have not physically seen bees on the squash plants, but I have seen multiple species of bugs in the flowers (of which I can't identify).

I'll go outside now and see how many female flowers I have, but I know that it is overwhelmingly male.

 

[kribensis12]

Update - out of 3 squash plants there are ZERO female flowers. I see a TON of buds, but once again, all of the buds appear to be male. Maybe they will change in appearance before opening, but it does not seem like any are female right now.

 

[kribensis12]

Is there anything I can do to encourage it to produce female flowers? I'm puzzled how 3 plants all have male only flowers!

 

[Chuck]

Is there anything I can do to encourage it to produce female flowers? I'm puzzled how 3 plants all have male only flowers!

If this is an heirloom variety most if not all of the early blooms will be male. Be patient. There will be plenty of female blooms later.

 

[alp]

I have about 6 baby squashes on mine.

The parent squash was like this

All the squashes are very healthy. Temperature ranges from 7C to 28c

 

[kribensis12]

They are not an heirloom variety of spaghetti squash.

 

[kribensis12]

It's been two weeks and I've seen many female blossoms, but I've yet to see any of those blossoms turn into a beginning squash. They all appear to die...

Any idea what is going on? The vines are VERY healthy and growing like crazy.

 

[Chuck]

It's been two weeks and I've seen many female blossoms, but I've yet to see any of those blossoms turn into a beginning squash. They all appear to die...

Any idea what is going on? The vines are VERY healthy and growing like crazy.

If you are sure that the blooms are female and they die then they are not being pollinated. On a female bloom there will be a tiny baby fruit under the bloom and if there isn't it isn't a female bloom

 

[kribensis12]

They are definitely female blossoms. I'm not sure why they would not be pollinated if the tomatoes, beans and bell peppers nearby are all producing....

I'll go out and try to manually pollinate them now.

 

[Chuck]

They are definitely female blossoms. I'm not sure why they would not be pollinated if the tomatoes, beans and bell peppers nearby are all producing....

I'll go out and try to manually pollinate them now.

The reason your beans, tomatoes and peppers are producing is that they are all self pollinating. Squash isn't.

 

[kribensis12]

Well, I've learned something new today. I'm been gardening for a long time but I've never put much thought into pollination. Everything I've ever grown has produced like crazy, so I've never wondered if they were self-pollinating or not.