hello I seem to be on here a lot of the time now should I be gardening!!!!!!!
Back to subject should I remove the male flowers or should they stay on there thanks lorraine
A lot of people stuff the courgette flowers and cook them as a delicacy in most of Europe. They need to be harvested quickly or they develop into leaves.
However in the UK people knock them off for no reason what so ever. Other than they do not produce fruit.
The bees will fertilise the females from the male flower and produce seeds in the female plants. However like cucumbers, most varieties do not rquire a male at all.
Some prefer their courgettes (French) Zucchini (Italian) Marrow (English) without seeds.. So, removing the male flower will prevent seeds in the female fruits. Not that this is important if the fruits are harvested small which is currently fashionable and the french name of Courgette is used for small English Marrows in the UK
In the UK Marrows were allowed to grow large and were stored and used as food during the wars because they are a quick and easy to grow food plant and they store reasonably well.
It also makes them an ideal choice for children to teach them gardening. Especially as they grow well on a compost heap.
Recipes for stuffed flowers are available on the internet and they are becoming increasingly popular with discerning diners in London.
What ph means is that you should leave them. You need boys to get babies.
Quote from: OllieC on June 24, 2010, 21:07:37
What ph means is that you should leave them. You need boys to get babies.
I think most normal people realise that I could manage to say exactly that if that is what I mean.
You only need babies if you want to reproduce and you can leave that to the end of the season if you are saving seeds.
My courgettes have just started to flower - white volunteer, romanescu, and tondo d'italia - they all have loads of female flowers and very few male. Past years its always been the other way round at first. I thought if they weren't fertilised the courgettes didn't grow, just shrivelled up and dropped off. Yes? No?
Quote from: plot51A on June 24, 2010, 21:15:29
My courgettes have just started to flower - white volunteer, romanescu, and tondo d'italia - they all have loads of female flowers and very few male. Past years its always been the other way round at first. I thought if they weren't fertilised the courgettes didn't grow, just shrivelled up and dropped off. Yes? No?
Yes.
Indeed????
Well I'm always open to persuasion based on evidence, but every book you ever read, any trial you'd care to conduct & almost every person you ever talk to will tell you that you need the boys to get fruit. Not sure what ph means by "normal person" but that's a discussion for another time... no need to get personal, eh?!?!
If you want courgettes you MUST have pollination, therefore you MUST leave male flowers on the plant. Bees will transfer pollen to the female flowers.
Without pollination the unfertilised imature courgette will turn yellow, shrivel up and die.
Flowers do NOT turn into leaves if left on the plant, they just die.
Well, we grow the variety Parthenon, which is parthenogenic, ie self-fertile, so you don't need the male flowers. Sorry lads. ;D ;D
valmarg
Quote from: valmarg on June 24, 2010, 21:39:34
Well, we grow the variety Parthenon, which is parthenogenic, ie self-fertile, so you don't need the male flowers. Sorry lads. ;D ;D
valmarg
I'm trying them (amongst others) for the second year & have found the plants to be very lacking in vigour! Have you had much luck with them yet?
dear oh dear what have I started here I only wanted a simple yes or no I can feel the testerone from here haha I think that I will leave the little blighters on this could go on and on
lorraine
If the female is not fertilized, then the fruit will not swell, just drop off.
There are self fertile variates i.e. http://www.thompson-morgan.com/seeds1/product/322/1.html (http://www.thompson-morgan.com/seeds1/product/322/1.html). but this is the exception.
Not all cucumbers are self fertile.
If you want to eat the flowers, pick them before they open
Yes, Ollie, we've had very good results. OH starts them off in the greenhouse, and keeps them in there until they are quite large plants. Some are in large pots (10"), and others are planted direct into the ground. The ones in the large pots are outside now, and are giving us a very good crop, but the ones in the ground are looking a little bit sad, but it has been very dry here for the past few weeks. Tapwater is never quite so good for plants as rain.
On balance, I would recommend them.
valmarg
WTF
Ollie if this is your only problem I envy you.
There is a lot more important things to worry about. I just give a basic answer based on facts.
Sorry, Chrispy, but with Parthenon, they do not need male fertilisation, they are self fertile. The fruits do swell. and do not drop off.
There are other veg that are self fertile, french beans for one.
We are growing a new runner/french bean variety Moonlight. It has the characteristics of a french bean, but looks like a runner bean, and is self fertile. We have it growing in the greenhouse, and it is looking very good.
Whilst I would be the last person to want to get rid of the male of the species, they are not always essential. ;D ;D
valmarg
Quote from: valmarg on June 24, 2010, 22:24:40
Sorry, Chrispy, but with Parthenon, they do not need male fertilisation, they are self fertile. The fruits do swell. and do not drop off.
Thats what I said :)
Quote from: PurpleHeather on June 24, 2010, 22:04:00
WTF
Ollie if this is your only problem I envy you.
There is a lot more important things to worry about. I just give a basic answer based on facts.
Yes, but apart from parthenon that Valmarg is growing, you are wrong and you need to keep the male flowers on courgettes or the courgette gets no bigger than about and inch long and very thin before it gives up the ghost, rots and drops off. To get courgettes any bigger than this from most plants, they need fertilisation. It is this desire to grow into marrows that makes them bigger and they will not do that unless they have fertile seeds to mature. Courgettes are immature fertilised fruit. Parthenon is self fertile.
Parthenon is one of the unusual parthenogenic ones because it doesn't have to wait for the bees to be flying to set fruit, useful as they can be fruiting before the bees are out BUT.... these types of squash are a rarity.
To address The question in general..|Do I need the male flowers to pollinate my squash, definitely you do, if you remove the male flowers you simply will not get fruit.It is the same for winter squash and pumpkins,, but not always cukes .
If you can tell me the name of your squash I can give you a precise answer in relation to the type you are growing if you are worried . however if it is one of the few parthenogenic types it wouldn't generally grew male flowers.
In regular types,male flowers should come first,followed by the gals who are usually pollinated with the help of the bees.
The pollen from the male flower has to be transferred to the female flower in order for the squash to grow, unfertilised fruits which are easily recognised at the base of a female flower , will drop off if the male pollen does not reach them. They will not turn into leaves. If I were to grow squash in a greenhouse situation where the bees couldn't reach them I would have to hand pollinate .
XX Jeannine
Fight, fight, fight.......... ;D
You are both right in different ways, so lets leave it at that!
I don't think any of us were fighting. ???
The cucumber family is strange.
Melons, yes you nee to have male flowers to pollinate the females. I can remember one year may dad had no melons. He grew quite a few plants, but when there were female flowers on the plants, there were no males, and vice versa. End result zippo.
Cucumbers, you are better growing the all female flowered varieties. If you grow a variety with male and female flowers you need to take off all the male flowers, because if they fertilise a female flower the resulting cucumber will be extremely bitter.
Squash I cannot comment on as we don't grow them.
As I've said with courgettes, we have been growing Parthenon for several years, and keep them in the greenhouse until they are quite large. The added bonus of this is that you can have fruits forming early without the need for bees.
valmarg
Quote from: valmarg on June 25, 2010, 15:37:09
Cucumbers, you are better growing the all female flowered varieties. If you grow a variety with male and female flowers you need to take off all the male flowers, because if they fertilise a female flower the resulting cucumber will be extremely bitter.
Depends, I grow Burpless Tasty Green, says on packet do
not remove male flowers, I even hand pollinate the ones in the greenhouse and they taste great.
javaheart, no-one is fighting here it is simply a discussion about squash pollination.
Both right... no not exactly.
Parthenon is the exception to the rule and not part of the original discussion, the info on that particular variety is correct in that context. The other views are corrrect as pertaining to all the other squashes.Two completely different subjects therefore nothing to fight about..
XX Jeannine
Children children calm down haha I am so pleased that this subject has been discussed in such length I shall think of this as I am cooking them [how sad] lorraine
For goodness sake, no need to be sad, no one is fighting
Quote from: Chrispy on June 25, 2010, 16:16:34
Quote from: valmarg on June 25, 2010, 15:37:09
Cucumbers, you are better growing the all female flowered varieties. If you grow a variety with male and female flowers you need to take off all the male flowers, because if they fertilise a female flower the resulting cucumber will be extremely bitter.
Depends, I grow Burpless Tasty Green, says on packet do not remove male flowers, I even hand pollinate the ones in the greenhouse and they taste great.
Quote from: Chrispy on June 25, 2010, 16:16:34
Quote from: valmarg on June 25, 2010, 15:37:09
Cucumbers, you are better growing the all female flowered varieties. If you grow a variety with male and female flowers you need to take off all the male flowers, because if they fertilise a female flower the resulting cucumber will be extremely bitter.
Depends, I grow Burpless Tasty Green, says on packet do not remove male flowers, I even hand pollinate the ones in the greenhouse and they taste great.
[/quote
Ooops, sorry pardon Chrispy,
I'm probably giving my age away, but when we first grew cucumbers the only ones available were the ones with male and female flowers. You needed to pick off the male flowers because if you left any on and the females were pollinated by the males the resulting cucumbers were just sooo bitter.
It's probably a throwback to this that has never ever tempted us to grow male/female cucumbers.
Burpless. Thats a good name for a cucumber. What we know them as is 'all wind and water'. ;D ;D
valmarg
Courgettes is simple - dig a hole, put 'em in, water well, come back next week and pick buckets-full.
What's the problem with flowers? Or anything else, for that matter??