Cucumber question?

[Gardening girl]

I have millions of flowers on my cucumber plants, but no cucumbers. Why is this?

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Like a lot of cucurbits, cucumbers are monecious meaning they have male and female flowers. My guess is that, this early, all of the flowers being produced are male (which is again a common occurrence). Female should show up later and, if you are lucky and still have male at the time (it helps if there is more than one plant since they will flower at different times and the male of one may sync up with the female of another.) you should start getting fruit.

 

[dickiebird]

Kinda like the birds and the bees!!!!

THANX RICH

 

[Gardening girl]

Thanks guys!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Cucurbits often produce many flowers, mostly male, before they start setting fruit. Since the male and female flowers are separated, they need a pollinator, like a bee, to pollinate them. The cucumber won't develop unless it is pollinated.

If you look at the individual flowers the female have a tiny cucumber at the base, the males do not. If you see a female you can take a male and rub the flowers together, pollinating it yourself. That may get production started if your pollinators are lazy.

 

[Gardening girl]

Thanks!! I will do that. How can I tell which is male and female? Can I just rip off the male flowers petals.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The females have a tiny cucumber at the base. Rip or snip the males off.

 

[Beekissed]

Rip or snip the males off.

.....and males across the forum cringe as their eyes roll back in the agony of imagining.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

And be glad you aren't trying to grow parval melons (used in Indian cooking) which are a NIGHTMARE when it comes to pollination. (They are fully dioecios, so you have male and female plants with males outnumbering females by quite a lot. And there is no way to tell one from the other until they flower, by which point you have committed massive amounts of ground to plants you will mostly get no real use out of (it only takes one male to pollinate a whole field of females) I imagine this is why few Indian seed companies sell seed for this vegetable.)

 

[ducks4you]

Don't some of us fry up those male flowers?