Cukes gone wild...

[applestar]

Female cucurbita blossoms have a baby fruit (a miniature version of the expected fruit) between the blossom and the stem. My cukes are blooming all male still too. I don't even see a developing female flower bud along the vines. Most of my squashes have at least one female flower bud further up the vine.... (Sigh) Patience.....

[Kerathome]

Thanks Applestar. Thanks - that is what I've been looking for - definitely all male. What gives! Next year I'll grow my own from seedlings instead of buying plants at Lowe's, and plant a variety! I've learned so much this year - but also am experiencing some sadness that my garden isn't quite so fruitful as I had hoped.

[Kerathome]

All boy blooms up in here.

[Lindsaylew82]

You WILL know the difference!

There will be a teeny tiny cuke on there, with a yellow blossom right on the end!

[pepperhead212]

3 days ago there were 2, now 5, so, like I said, once they start, there's no stopping them!

The variety I grow is County Fair - the only one I can grow, as all others have gotten bacterial wilt, to which CF is resistant. And when I got a new packet of seeds this season, it said "improved County Fair", which may refer to the fact that they don't require pollination, and I don't remember this about it before. Something to think about, for those with few pollinating insects, though I don't have that problem.

And talk about going crazy, those West Indian Gherkins have a HUGE number of fruits on them, and vines going out all over! I'll post some pics when I start harvesting. Here are some very small ones:

[Lindsaylew82]

OoooOOOOOooo! What are you gonna do with the West Indian ones?

[kayjay]

Female cucumber flower has a tiny cucumber underneath it. Male does not, just a skinny stem. Easy to tell them apart:

[Kerathome]

Thanks for the pictures and the input everyone! I continue to search daily for the female flowers, and thought I saw one the other day, so I ran and got some cotton swabs to get my artificial insemination operation started, lol. I tried to get some trellacing set up for the cucumbers since they've grown so much bigger than the cages, and now I can't find the female blooms anymore. Ohwell, I'll keep checking. Even my bell peppers are finally blooming, and all my tomatoes (except my cherokee purple that were mangled in the last storm we had Friday) are growing fruit, so I'm considering my 1st year garden to be a success, with or without the cucumbers

[pepperhead212]

Here's more photos of what the females look like, and how many there will be, once they get going.
Two 6" ones:


Three 2" ones:


And even more of those gherkins!

[Kerathome]

AGHHHHHHH!! I found my first girl!!! My son was out there with me and thought I got stung by a bee when I squealed, lol. I only was out there to check the soil to see if watering was needed, and didn't have all my anti-mosquito gear (my beds are right next to the woods, so I have to wear long pants/sleeves/boots and even a hat with mosquito netting, otherwise I get carried away) so I couldn't hang around longer to see if there were more. I'll sneak back down and take a picture later! I'm so excited!

[applestar]

Yay!

[Kerathome]

Here she is! I could only find the one. I plucked a male and rubbed her bloom with it, though I'm not sure it was necessary, lol.

She's a little tough to spot - only about an inch long!

[Kerathome]

Found 5 baby cucumbers today, and even more exciting, several fat bumble bee's (or honey bees?) crawling around in the blooms. I was so worried that I wasn't going to see a single cuke - what a relief!

[MichaelC]

In my experience it may still take a week or more before they start growing. If so, don't despair!

[Kerathome]

Thanks for the heads up, Michael! I did end up finding 2-3 more a few days later, but then when I went out to look at them again yesterday, I could find only the one still. There are honey bees covering the blooms all day long, so I'm not convinced that pollination is an issue, but not sure where the other ladies would have run off too. It is a very BUSHY plant, I'm hopeful my eyes are just missing them.

[MichaelC]

Have you had any fruits yet? I hope so. I've had some cucumbers that produced poorly in the past, right next to other plants doing well.

Mine are going like crazy now, every day I'm pulling off 3-4 cukes.

[Kerathome]

Hi Michael! Thanks for checking in

I actually DID have some fruit. One that was about 4 inches long. But, the plant was choking itself out, all the leaves at the bottom hidden in the dense forest of cucumber leaves and vines were turning yellow and it was just a sad state of affairs. We decided to take action by creating a trellis of garden wire and rebar. I cut off a lot of the dead stuff that was hidden inside, and then tried to unfurl the plant from itself (so difficult with all those little tendrils strangling its own stems). It looks a lot less bushy now, and I accidentally broke the branch that my 4 inch cuke was growing on (OOPS!) but hopefully this will give the remaining girls (there are about 6 of them) a fighting chance at making it to my kitchen table