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Location central Jersey (USA). I have a small garden next to the house. All my plants get watered nightly from the sprinkler system. My tomatoes and hot peppers are producing bumper crops, but the squash and pickle plants near them are just producing flowers.

Is it too hot for them right now or is there some other issue?

Niall C.
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Chaim Geretz
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  • Have they been producing flowers for awhile that never seem to turn into anything? Or are they only just now starting to produce flowers and you're wondering why they are behind? – GardenerJ Jul 28 '16 at 19:34
  • Have been producing flowers for at least 4 weeks, but they arent turning into anything. – Chaim Geretz Jul 28 '16 at 19:38
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    Number UNO, do not water at night I don't care how hot it gets! The primary question is what are you using for fertilizer? Only water when the soil is very dry. That might be every day in sandy, pumice soils and hot weather but never water at night or in the evenings. Fertilizer??? Too much nitrogen, you will get few flowers, fewer fruits/vegetables. – stormy Jul 28 '16 at 21:17
  • Are the squash flowers all male? – Graham Chiu Jul 29 '16 at 04:36
  • How hot is it, exactly? – Brōtsyorfuzthrāx Jul 29 '16 at 07:06
  • @GrahamChiu: I googled, and it appears that I've only been getting male flowers, at least on the squash (long stems no bulge), not sure how to tell the difference by the pickles. – Chaim Geretz Jul 29 '16 at 14:44
  • @Shule: this week days have been in the 90s, but before, and hopefully next week as well, in the 80s – Chaim Geretz Jul 29 '16 at 14:45

1 Answers1

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One possibility is that your squash and cucumber plants aren't getting enough sun. Tomatoes and peppers can fruit with less sun than most cucurbits. I've had that experience (but I didn't exactly get bumper crops on the tomatoes and peppers; so, maybe this isn't what's going on with you).

I'm guessing they're just not receiving the proper climate signals they need (whatever those are for your varieties) to decide it's time to fruit. The plants may also be stressed, or deficient of something (they might like some compost). Or, they could just be late-maturing varieties. Some take their time before they produce female flowers. If you clip off lots of the male flowers, I'm guessing they might produce female ones faster (I've done that with indoor cucumbers before, and they pumped out more flowers fast, and eventually some female ones). You can eat the flowers of both squash and cucumbers.

You should try Monika cucumbers. I'm growing them this year, and they are rather prolific. They produce loads of female flowers (before any male ones, in my experience, and it's parthenocarpic; so, it can still set fruit without pollination). The fruits are tasty, and early. Beit Alpha, though not parthenocarpic, is doing pretty well for me, too, here. (The links there point to where I got my seeds.) Suyo Long is also doing well, but is later than the aforementioned. Little Leaf and Brown Russian are still without fruit, I believe; for me, I'm guessing it's the dry heat, and the soil nutrients that are responsible for this.

You might try a mostly gynoecious, parthenocarpic squash, too (one that produces mostly female flowers and doesn't need pollination to set fruit).

It should be noted that not all parthenocarpic plants are gynoecious (or even mostly so), and not all gynoecious plants are parthenocarpic.

You might also try growing both gynoecious cucumbers/squash (whether or not they're parthenocarpic) and normal ones, too (to pollinate them).

Every day watering sounds a little much, unless your soil is drying out every day (which it might in a container or something). This might have something to do with the lack of female flowers, but I would guess something else (I may be wrong).

Brōtsyorfuzthrāx
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    Agree, and +1 on the over-watering. Every night is definitely not a great idea. My gardening is all container currently and it never dries out even in zone 9b. – Srihari Yamanoor Sep 28 '16 at 06:47