Well yesterday, the biggest one broke off and lay in the dirt next to the plant. When I saw, I thought it seemed strange - maybe a critter ran through and snapped it off? It certainly didn't look chewed on. And whoever might have broken it off obviously had no interest in eating the delicious blossom. The stem looked clean cut, not chewed or bent or damaged in anyway. Must be a critter brushing past, right? So I did the only thing I knew how to do and put out some Shake Away (fox urine) on the grass circling my crops to deter the pests.
Then this morning... I see this:
Two more snapped off! Laying in the dirt. That's three stems that look severed at the tip. You can see them in the picture. The weirdness seemed weirder. Now I did the only other thing I could think to do - google it.
Apparently this is a normal thing. A normal thing that my gardening bible didn't mention. When male flowers are finished they just pop right off. I suppose in attempt not to waste energy. The other reason this happens is female flowers will fall when they weren't properly pollinated, presumably for the same reason. So then my question was... Do we have a pollination problem and when do you step in?
I am also turning to google for this one. I watched a vimeo with explanation of male and female flowers and how to help pollinate. I learned that the three flowers we lost were all male flowers, so I guess it's not terrible that we lost them. Zucchinis produce both male and female flowers but the trick is that they have to be open at the same time to have the chance of cross pollination. This might be reason enough to plant multiple zucchini plants, we only did one and maybe multiples would make this process a little easier or greater chances of happening 'the natural way'.
So today and tomorrow.. we will survey the scene. It looks like we have some male and female flowers that are getting close to opening. I'll report if we intervene!
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