No pollen in squash flowers???

[Moopmoop]

Last year I attempted to grow butternut squash and pumpkins. The plants themselves grew well and seemed pretty healthy, unfortunately I did not get one single fruit off either plant. The butternut squash flowers never really opened, I put that down to cold weather. However the pumpkin flowers did open and there were many of them, problem I noticed was that there was no pollen inside the flowers. Normally it is full of yellow pollen, this year I tried to hand pollinate with a small paint brush but there was just about no pollen inside. Was this weather realted or not? I plan to try again with a lot more squash/pumpkin next year as I have had success with them before. What went wrong?

[binley100]

sh!te weather, slugs and snails put paid to most of mine before they even flowered ..........

[horticultural_hobbit]

Ah, but were they boy and girl flowers? Mine also got eaten by garden pests.

[Moopmoop]

Yes, plenty of both but no pollen in boy flowers to pollinate girl flowers. Very disappointing.

[Two_Sheds]

The plants grew well... suggesting their was plenty of nitrogen (for green growth).

How do you think they fared for potash/potassium (needed for fruit production)?

[Moopmoop]

I think I was feeding them a Nitrogen based plant food? Could you suggest a plant food for Potassium please. Thank you

[binley100]

I feed mine comfrey tea, or nettle tea ..........thats when the snugs and the weather allow them to grow of course...

[Moopmoop]

Can I be really cheeky and ask if there is one that I can buy in a bottle? I normally use tomato food or Miracle gro vegetable food, neither of them no good???

[rustylady]

Tomato food should be fairly high in Potassium, just make sure you don't get it on the leaves. Just look on the bottles for the N:k ratio.

[Moopmoop]

Thanks for the info, I'm already getting excited at the thought of it and I can't sow any for at least 3 or 4 months yet.