What's going on if you have gorgeous squash and zucchini plants, but for the life of

you, you cannot get a harvest. Although it didn't used to be, the last two years this has

become common in my garden and from what I can hear from many of you guys, it's common

in yours too. The problem most likely is a lack of pollination. Now if you first start

seeing flowers on your zucchini squash or really any other cucubit for that matter, cucumbers, melons,

the first flowers for the first, I would say, week or two are going to be male flowers. They pretty

much are sending out a signal to the pollinators saying,

come hang out here. And then eventually the female flowers will show up. In a perfect environment,

the pollinators, namely I see mainly honeybees and bubble bees around my squash and zucchini,

will already be present when those female flowers show up.

That way the pollen gets transferred from the male flowers

to the female flowers and then you have pollination.

The problem that many of us are running into, however,

is that those pollinators are not getting the message apparently.

Even though those male flowers are begging them to come,

they're not coming right away.

And if that's the case, then you might have to hand pollinate,

at least for a little while.

I know in the last couple of years,

I've had to do that for the first couple of weeks

until my pollinators got the message.

But first, how do you know that a lack of

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