Saturday, March 22, 2008

Damn Squash!

My last squash plant is flowering but unfortunately all I'm getting are female flowers. My other plant succumbed to what I think was powdery mildew. I am treating my last squash plant with a 50/50 solution of milk and water. It seems to work. By altering the PH on the surface of the leaves the solution seems to prevent the mildew from getting a foothold. I would rather use milk than any chemicals. However, with only female flowers and no males to pollinate them, my baby squash just rots and dies after it gets to be around two inches long. I use Q-Tips to pollinate the females but I've got no male flowers as a source. We are short on Bees right now so I'm taking a wait and see attitude for the time being. It's too bad since these plants put out four to five squash at a time. Last Summer's crop was very good. Come on male flowers, you're bringing up the rear. Get cracking dammit! If not, I'll give it a couple of more weeks and then I'm gonna plant my Spring crop of Kentucky Wonder pole beans. Last year I got around thirty pounds out of eight plants in my buckets.

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