Cucumbers flowering - no fruits! HELP!

GuitarGerber · Joined: 29 Mar 2004 Posts: 14 Location: Kerrville, TX

What's the deal? This happened last year, too. I have beautiful cucumber vines with many many flowers and no fruits! Is there anything I can do to encourage fruiting? Please help! They're straight 8's, and the soil had been prepared with lots of compost. Thanks!

Eric

dragonfly · Posted: Sun Jul 18, 2004 9:11 pm Post subject:

Either you don't have any female flowers yet, or the plants are not being pollinated. If it is lack of pollination, you can hand pollinate by picking male flowers and "dabbing" them inside the female flowers. If it's lack of female flowers, I have no advice.

Phlaura · Joined: 09 Jun 2004 Posts: 24 Location: Kenyon, Minnesota

:?: What Variety are You planting? Gynoecious refers to varieties that have almost all female flowers. In the regular old monoecious cucumber, male blossoms greatly outnumber the female, or fruiting, blossoms. Gynoecious cucumbers set with the first flowers set closer to the base or crown of the plant, have higher yields and mature earlier.

Gynoecious cucumbers, however, need a male pollinator plant, seeds of which are included in a packet of gynoecious varieties. Male plants have green seeds and female plants have beige seeds. One male plant is needed for every 5 to 8-female plants.

Mel Wilkes · Joined: 25 Jul 2004 Posts: 3 Location: ,

Especially if this happened to you last year you might have a minerial deficiency I belive it to be potasium.
If you don't begin now using compost and maybe now composted manure around your plants. But more importantly before next planting season take a soil sample to your county extension and see what you are deficient in. I would also ask any local farmers if they could spare any manure then wait until your garden season is done and put it right ontp the garden soil and till it in, in the spring. This along with adding as much compost as you can will make any correction that needs to be made

good luck