Hormonally challenged courgette?

elsien

My courgette plant only seems to be throwing out male flowers at the moment. Have I got a dud, or is there anything I could be doing to encourage it to actually produce some courgettes?

a1cat

Are you feeding it? Very greedy, courgettes. Feeding every day and watering twice a day is not over-doing it

yumyums

Not very helpful but mine is doing exactly the same thing.
Hopefully someone can advise!

My cucumber did the same thing at the start though and now it's doing fine

Goldfinger69

Mine aren't even flowering yet. You can eat the male flowers in a tempura batter, and still have the courgette fruit from the female.

Sally_A

Don't panic, the plant usually produces male flowers before the females come along.

Yorkie1

Sally A beat me to it. This is standard behaviour for courgettes, squash etc.

elsien

Thanks - I've grown courgettes before but this is the first time they've gone all masculine on me.

Feeding daily? Really? I normally do the once a week job.

a1cat

elsien wrote: »

Thanks - I've grown courgettes before but this is the first time they've gone all masculine on me.

Feeding daily? Really? I normally do the once a week job.

Courgettes respond very well to daily feeding, you might want to dilute it by half though

Mrs_Domino

a1cat wrote: »

Courgettes respond very well to daily feeding, you might want to dilute it by half though

Sorry to hijack the thread but I've got my first courgette coming and wondered do you just feed them tomato food?

a1cat

Mrs_Domino wrote: »

Sorry to hijack the thread but I've got my first courgette coming and wondered do you just feed them tomato food?

Anything you've got will do. Currently Miracle Gro and they love that but any tomato or geranium or chicken poo or general plant food will do fine

DaftyDuck

Courgettes benefit from a light foliar feed every couple of days, but root feeding less often - once a week. More increases the speed of growth excessively, risking splitting of skins and seed formation. Balanced foliar feeding helps reduce the risk. Keep the soil slightly damp, to avoid irregular fruit growth. Remove any dead/decaying leaves, and any past-it flowers - reduces the risk of rot setting in on the plant.

As to male flowers, pinch them all out if there are no female flowers to pollinate - a waste of energy otherwise. The male flowers do come first, often for two weeks before a single female flower appears. When you get female flowers as well, leave one or two males about for pollination. You can artificially pollinate by shoving a male flower into a female (:eek:), and one male can be used on many female flowers. There should be an obvious difference - female flowers have a mini-courgette behind them, males don't.