Squash Flowers

[MissC]

All of my squash plants (a mixture of butternut, pattipan, trombocino and spaghetti, no idea which is which though) have flower buds. The plants are only between 3-6 inches in size. Should I pinch out the flowers or let them grow?

[Thelma Sanders]

I would pinch them out, til the plants are a bit bigger.

[Bigmallly]

Male flowers tend to show before Female, have no idea why............maybe it's just a male thing....................so you could nip them out as they will outnumber the Female buds.

[Chris11]

The flowers are very attractive and a great source of food for bees, so I'd leave them on.

I think the male flowers predominate early season as it's nature's way of encouraging the bees to start visiting without wasting the plant's limited resources trying to grow fruit too early.

When the plants are larger, and the temperature and light have increased, the plants then respond with more female flowers and fruit, and the bees are already visiting and ready to do their pollinating

[Scarlet]

3-6inches is much too early for a plant to be flowering. All this stage of a plants growth all its energy is best spent on producing a strong plant /roots/leaf and frame to enable it to support/ feed the fruit later on.

Where are you keeping the plants, if they are in pots it may be time to move them up a size? Stressed plants often throw out flowers early.

[MissC]

Well most of them came in the post a few days ago, so I'd say they've probably had quite a stressful time haha but the spaghetti squash I've grown from seed is also throwing out flowers so I'm not really sure? All are in 12cm pots in the greenhouse. These should be fine for the size they are at the moment, shouldn't they? They aren't showing roots from the base yet...

[Scarlet]

If you cant see any roots they should be ok, but I would certainly follow Thelma's advice and take those flowers off now. Let the plant put on some growth first.

[Scarlet]

The flowers are very attractive and a great source of food for bees, so I'd leave them on.

Not at the expense of the plant! There will be plenty more flowers for the bees later. These plants are only 3 inches tall.

[MissC]

I've nipped them out. I think the trip in the post must have pushed them over the edge a bit... I'd be interested to see if any other grapes have similar problems as they are from the James Wong Veg Collection pack. Fingers crossed they do a bit more growing before the try to reproduce again! Thanks for your advice everyone.