Cucumbers: Where are the female blossoms & so small...
I have some pretty tall cucumber plants on the go: from seeds in late june, re potted into large containers early august. They seem do be doing well. Last week I saw the first blossoms, now I have 10-15 on each plant. My problem, they all seem to be male, no fruit behind the blossom and also very small, size of a quarter, open for a day or so, the wilt and die. I grew some squash last fall and had to pollinate by hand, using a cotton bud, rubbing the male pollen onto the female made the fruit grow. My problem with the cucs: I don't see any females yet and the blossoms are so small it's even hard to tell... It feels like a singles bar full of teenage boys LOL, any thoughts, thanks
. It's hard to tell, anyway, until the flowers get larger.-
rainbowgardener
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Agree with above, if they only recently started flowering, just be patient. It is very typical of all the cucurbits (squash, melons, cukes, etc) to produce just male flowers at first. It's been speculated that is to attract the bees, so that by the time the female ones appear, there are bees around that are used to coming to that plant.
Are you fertilizing them with anything? I just picked my 2 golf-ball cukes. I also found a third onehardland wrote:Amazing, I must have 30 male blossoms on my cuc plants at any given time, but still no females, and the blossoms are so small. I'm thinking of hooking up a video player and playing some re-runs of Golden girls to attract some females.... LOL
.Hi, yes I'm using an organic granular fert called garden tone, it is: 3% Nitrogen, 4% phosphate, 4% pottash, 5% calcium, 1% magnesium, 2% Sulphur. My cucs are in plastic 7 gallon containers, I mulched when I transplanted. I give each plant about 2 tablespoons of fert once a week. I understand that fert flushes thru the soil pretty quick in containers, so I think thats about right? I water daily about 1 gallon per plant, when it's not raining. I'm in FL and it's hot,hot,hot +humid... The plants look very healthy, I used a diluted milk solution for an early fungus, did well. I have sprayed once with spinosad for catterpillars, did well. Just no female blossoms......