Disappearing Zucchini Flowers

[kayjay]

Is there a critter that likes to munch squash flowers? Besides us, that is?

The first few male flowers bloomed, dried up, and fell off. No problem. Well, now I have the first female about to bloom and the male flowers over the last week have disappeared without a trace. They were there, and the next morning, gone. In each case, it looks like they were cleanly broken off.

Now, between the landscapers with their leafblowers and the massive wind storm we had over the weekend, I guess they could have blown away. But it seems pretty strange.

There's a male flower blooming right now. Can I or should I grab it and bring it inside so I can pollinate the female flower myself? Would that work? Or should I just forget about it and let nature take its course? I can't really see how I could protect a zucchini bush from critters without a trip to a hardware store. Not going to happen as I'm transportationally-challenged and tomorrow's a holiday here.

(ETA) For what it's worth, I live in a concrete wasteland and to my knowledge, there are no rabbits or deer. I haven't even seen raccoons or opossums here, just birds and squirrels.

TIA!

[applestar]

Male flowers only bloom for one day, then they close and fall the next day.
If that's not what you are talking about. Another factor could be insufficient water.

I haven't tried this, but I understand the pollen could remain viable for a couple of days if refrigerated. So what you could do is pic the available male blossoms by cutting with long stem, then make pollinating wands. I posted pictures somewhere before.

-- essentially, make a single cut down the petal to the base of the blossom, then sort of peel the blossom away all the way around so you have the stem with the pollen loaded tip. If you are trying to save pollen, I would do this over a white paper so pollen that are on the petals will fall on the paper. Loosely fold the paper into an envelope with the wands inside and put in the veg drawer/crisper of the fridge. It's probably a good idea to talk the pollen packet out and let them warm to room temp before using.

Once you've been doing it for a while, you'll recognize the male and female blossoms that will open the next day, and you'll know if you will have males to go with the female blossoms when they open.

[applestar]

I remembered I took a picture the other day -- This is Black Futsu, a C. moschata and not a C. pepo like zucchini, so the shape of the blossom is a little different, but you get the idea.

[kayjay]

Thanks, Applestar! I know the males only bloom for a day, but what was weird is that they disappeared, they didn't just dry up and fall off. I've got fallen dried-up cucumber flowers all over the place, so that's why I thought something was decapitating them.

I doubt water was an issue... if anything, there's been too much rain.

Funny how much I worry about a single baby zucchini when I could walk across the street to the grocery store and buy one for a dollar. LOL. I was wide awake at 5:00 am, and my first thought was, "gotta check on the zucchini..."

I will definitely keep that in mind for the future, that I can snip off a male flower and toss it in the fridge if I'm worried about polination. And then, I can throw it on my salad.

As it turns out, crisis averted. I hand-pollinated.