Zucchini shriveling up, some BEFORE flower opens.

9 years ago

This is my first year of growing zucchini and about 5 days ago I pulled a perfect zucchini off of the plant. At that time there were two small zucchinis just starting to form (part of the reason I decided to pull the one bigger one) but within a couple of days the blossoms were starting to wilt/brown and yesterday the fruit itself shriveled up.

There is also another female flower that started to get going, but hasn't actually opened up yet and the ovary has shriveled in the same way as the two developing fruits, this morning.

I thought it was possibly a pollination problem, since I had a healthy fruit a few days ago and these seemed to be doing fine to start with, but what about the one flower that hasn't even opened yet? Could it be a lack of calcium in the soil? Did that one healthy fruit take all the calcium that was available?

It's a raised bed and several of my other plants seemed to grind to a halt, after springing up; they are still healthy, just not growing any bigger. I made up some compost tea using Dr Earth's tomato/veggie fertilizer and applied it yesterday.

Thanks in advance!

Comments (5)

jean001a
9 years ago
The females are open for only a few hours. More than likely, you missed it.
Firephly
Original Author
9 years ago
I don't think I did miss it flowering, it never got big enough to open up (still green and tight). It's of course possible, but it never even got it's color and was tiny.
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digdirt2
9 years ago
Have you read the FAQ here about Blossom Drop? It affects squash just as it does tomatoes and all other fruiting vegetables. So what have your temperatures/winds/humidity been like?

The bloom on the squash on the bottom in your photo sure looks like it had opened in the photo. Very early AM, just after sunrise, and only open for a couple of hours so it is easy to miss them.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Blossom Drop FAQ
Firephly
Original Author
9 years ago
Temperatures have been high, in the 90s. I hadn't seen the blossom drop one, just blossom end rot. I just now read it, thank you.

The flower on the bottom HAD opened, for sure, the one above it did not though and there is one over the other side, which also opened. All of them started to shrivel at the same time.

I have at least 3 more female flowers coming up right now, so fingers crossed they do okay. They haven't opened yet, but should within the next couple of days I think. Got plenty of males floating around right now (3 open today, fortunately there are like 5 more currently growing with about 3 at around the right stage for when the females open up!) so I guess we'll see what happens. Would you recommend hand pollinating these new females?
djkj
9 years ago
I hand pollinate early morning - before the sun comes out fully, it a nice window.