A courgette question?

[NigellaTheOriginal]

my lovely courgettes are flowering - it seems though that some of the stems with flowers are courgette shaped but most are just stalks with flowers on. does this mean those ones won't grow into fruit? and should i pluck them off to encourage the fruity ones to grow?

[ProfYaffle]

I'm no expert, growing courgettes for the first time this year, but I think they're male and female plants. Female have the fruit and male just stalks.

I was looking at the bbc Gardener's World website today and it recommend pollinating them by hand in ropey weather (mine are starting to rot with all the wet weather ) so today I've had a cotton bud on the male ones and then rubbing it on the female ones.

I think you can pluck the male ones to eat.

[ProfYaffle]

Sorry, male and female flowers, not plants.

[Mung]

Watching carefully, as I was just about to post the same thing...where are my courgettes . To really rub it in, my neighbour left me two lovely courgettes on my step today.

[sumomum]

Ohh, will watch this thread with interest. My attempt at growing courgettes/sweetcorn/pumpkins is failing before my eyes!!

Similar to you the plants are growing but there is still no sign of the actual veg!!

[hmmm]

Sorry to hijack

[choccypig]

It's true the stalky ones are the males, and don't develop into fruit, but I don't think it matters about removing them. I've never bothered anyway.
Cucumbers however, are the same family and you should remove the male flowers, as the cucumbers get bitter and seedy if they are fertilised. I grew cucs for the first time last year, and didn't bother removing the males, and it was noticable that some of the cucumbers were lovely and some were quite bitter.

[NigellaTheOriginal]

so i can carry on admiring them - they're rather pretty. but at this rate i'll have one courgette from about a thousand plants.
no pumpkin flowers yet.

[ProfYaffle]

I've got beautiful green and yellow baby fruit about 6cm long, was all going swimmingly til it started raining this week, now they're crumbling before my eyes! 'tis heartbreaking!

[BigBadMousey]

leave both on the plant. Cross pollinate (between the two) in bad weather and be vigilant to slugs - nothing worse than geting only a few due to poor weather then having what you get eaten by slugs.

You can eat the flowers - both male and female (just leave he flower on the courgette for females) apparently V nice but I haven't tried them yet.

[Mung]

I once ate an omlette with courgette flowers in...very pretty and very tasty.

[Mung]

How do you cross pollinate? Do I just try and rub the flowers together? Someone had warned me about the 'corn porn', but I didn't know about the courgettes.

[allytjd]

I'm having this problem too, loads of male flowers only two baby courgettes that aren't getting any bigger, winter squashes coming along but no flowers on the summer squashes, cucumbers rubbish and everything else well behind v. frustrating!

[ib]

Flowers are scrummy. Try them in breadcrumbs and fried in olive oil.

[BigBadMousey]

info here on hand pollinating and poor crop problems (scroll down a bit)