Zucchini Pollination
I keep reading online that a zucchini female flower has to be pollinated for the zucchini to grow. I had a plant this year that had a good sized zucchini on it before any flowers had opened on any squash, melon, cucumber, or pumpkin plant in my garden, and no one else in town was growing any squash. The flower on that zucchini was the first flower to open on any plant in my garden. The female flower came before the male flowers, and the zucchini was big enough to pick before the flower ever opened. So I'm having a hard time believing that they have to be pollinated to grow. Does anyone know anything about this?
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The do need to be pollinated, so someone in town is growing zucchini without your knowledge.
My plants only produced female flowers for the first week or so this year. The fruits just yellowed and dropped off. The male flowers then appeared and I've been harvesting 1 or 2 every day since mid-june.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Some f1 varieties don't need pollination apparently and I must admit my zucchini have never been pollinated as I was told to cut off all male flowers as they make the fruit bitter. I have been doing the same to my cucumbers too and have been harvesting three weeks early and have had a bumper crop of both.
Male flowers on zucchini do not make the fruit bitter so I would never take advice from someone giving such erroneous advice. They may be wrong about important things too.
If they need to be pollinated to grow, then how did it get big before the flower ever opened on it?
How can you be sure that no insect that visited your plant has not visited another zucchini somewhere?
If you're growing cucumbers that are not F1 varieties (which do self-pollinate) then you need to remove the male flowers to prevent bitterness.
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
I can be sure no insect pollinated that flower to make that zucchini grow, because that zucchini grew before that flower ever opened.
And you positive that no one in a 5-10 mile radius of your courgette is growing courgettes?
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
It doesn't matter. The zucchini grew before its flower ever opened. Even if everyone around me was growing it and all their male flowers were open, my female flower was closed and had never opened yet. So how could it have been pollinated?
I guess we'll never know..
Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
Maybe not.