Courgettes keep dropping flowers, why is this?

[Leeds_lad]

Grown and dropped about 5 of them so far, getting quite worrying.
He's by himself near a couple of cucumbers, maybe I need a couple of courgettes in the same area?

[rustylady]

No, you need some decent weather. It's been too cold and wet for them to be pollinated. If you have male and female flowers open at the same time you could try doing it yourself.

[Creemteez]

Yup, you need some sun and a few busy bees!

[otorongo]

Mine look ok and there are a few courgettes coming.

I saw one being pollinated by a bumblebee the other day.

[dominic10]

Mine are pollinating but have been rotting on the bush. Today finally I picked a fully grown courgette. This is by far the worst year I have found for growing courgettes.

[veggiechicken]

According to this, squashes need 6 hours of sunshine daily - fat chance!!
Quite interesting read How Many Hours of Sun Does a Vegetable Garden Need? | eHow.com

[otorongo]

Quite interesting read How Many Hours of Sun Does a Vegetable Garden Need? | eHow.com

That article is meant for America where the sun generally shines from sunrise till sunset and you can easily figure out from the position how many hours of sun your plant will get every day.

In the UK, where the only way to get any sun in summers like this is to put your plants in a balloon and fly it above the thick cloud cover, it's of hardly any use.

[veggiechicken]

There used to be days when the sun shone for 6 hours, even here
We can only hope that some day it will happen again!

[Potstubsdustbins]

Leeds Lad, it is not unusual for courgettes to produce only male flowers at first these will drop off, thats what the flowers are supposed to do after they have pollinated the female flowers.

I would check if you have any female flowers on before you start to worry after all its only 5 flowers and that could be perfectly normal.

Colin