Pumpkin Problems!!

Okay, this year was the first time I tried to grow pumpkins. The foliage, leaves and everything grew just lovely, and it flowered beautifully. Problem was, that the only flowers it would make were male. I read various articles about this, and they all assured me that I just had to be patient, as they produce male flowers a few weeks before the female ones come too. Well, I'm still waiting, and it's been flowering for about 3 months. It's too late now for a pumpkin, but if anyone knows why this could have happened, I'd love to know. Happy gardening!!

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Permalink Reply by Soilman on August 28, 2010 at 20:25

Hmmm. It could be that the conditions were just a bit TOO perfect. I know that sounds insane, but I've had this with cucurbits in the past. If you give them gorgeous, ideal conditions (rich soil, lots of water, lots of sunshine), they sometimes go 'lazy' and produce only male flowers... or at least, very few female ones.

But I think it's more likely that you DID get female flowers, but that they never developed into pumpkins because of fertilisation problems... so you assumed they were male ones. This is a phenomenon of recent years, caused by the decline in the bee population. Simply put, the female flowers don't get pollinated, so they don't develop into pumpkins. Many people (inc me!) don't take any chances on this and hand-pollinate to be sure. You may want to try this next year – assuming that pollination was the problem.

Good luck!

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Permalink Reply by Karen Colcomb on August 28, 2010 at 20:58

Hi I have had very little in the way of pumpkins or squash this year despite many male flowers. I wondered if it was because although the weather was really hot Autumn seems to have come earlier, however some years you get good crops of one thing and not another last year for me it was carrots and this year beans.

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Permalink Reply by Melinda Que_Linda on August 29, 2010 at 11:14

Im having similar issues to you, but Im slightly more hopeful!

My squashes are flowering too and currently spreading all over the place, but as yet not a sign of a fruit.

Keep us updated!

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Brealey on September 3, 2010 at 21:21

To be honest, it all looks a bit dead. I checked so thoroughly that all the flowers were male, that I don't think that mis-sexing was the issue. I even printed off loads of pictures of male and female flowers!! LOL! Maybe I need to change my feed. Come on peeps, who feeds pumpkins with what??

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Brealey on September 5, 2010 at 10:33

I have a female flower!!!! It's a good one!!! I've alrerady pollenated it like crazy, so fingers crossed!! I think it's going to be a race against time for a pumpkin before the weather turns.......

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Permalink Reply by Jan Willetts on September 7, 2010 at 23:44

My butternut squash is behaving like this too-now getting quite a few tiny fruits which don't stand a chance of maturing before the first frosts, but I was late planting them. One plant had two huge fruits on a while ago, I got them confused with the round courgettes in the same bed and cut them off. one was rescued and is ripening on the windowsill, the other went in the compost heap because hubby said it was too hard to cut up-now I know why!

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Permalink Reply by Lu Overy on September 8, 2010 at 22:07

Can't help with the male flower business - mine have a lot of male flowers but there have been enough female flowers to come through, luckily. I thought I'd answer about the feeding question to kick things off - I don't feed them anything! Though the bed they are in had loads of cow manure dug in last autumn, so I think that's doing them a lot of good. I'm feeling a bit lucky, looking at your other replies...