The squash plant is in a 4-5 gallon pot, and manure (about 1/3) was worked into the soil before transplanting... The pot is one of those self-watering one... but I removed the under-dish since the water seemed to overflow from it... and I didn't want to have the bottom of the pot soaking all the time... but after the incident I put it back... End of July I discovered (finally) 2 female flowers. They were green and tiny, and then got bigger (fruit being 2cm long) and started to turn yellow... Then one day there was a black / brown dot on one (the one closer to the roots) and within a few day the dot turned into a line and the whole flower cracked on the line... Then the fruit and flower would be 95% separated from the stem and just turn brown and shriveled up... By the time that flower die, the second flower started cracking... They were both dead by mid-August... Now, 6 buds later, there is another female, which got to be bigger than both of the earlier one, but turning yellow again... Is it supposed to turn yellow ? or is that a sign that it is going to self-abort, too ? Also, what would be the reason that the earlier ones died ? Did I do something wrong ? The last picture, which was the second bud to die, showed brown edges at the crack but black spots at the tips of the bud sepal... Is that some toxin ? Would be grateful if someone could enlighten me !!
Interesting... I had the same problem in my small garden. I grew them last year and had 4 or 5 large butternut on three plants. Whitlam (organic) was a complete loss this year. The hybrids came in with 2 or 3 small butternut. Same problem as yours. I wonder about the seed... Some of my zucchini were also troublesome. Others of the same variety were quite prolific. The pumpkin (small cooking type) did well for the small space allocated to them. I would have expected them to do equally as well or poor as the squash. However, the pumpkin I grew last year in semi shade were larger and more prolific. I believe early fruit set is often determined by the available potassium in the soil. Growing in pots is also a challenge. Your plants look a bit pale. Either not enough nitrogen or too heavy soil (not enough oxygen reaching the roots because it stays too wet?). You might read about terra preta, biochar, and organic urea during the winter garden break. There is a lot of soil science information in the topics. Also, if your plants are in a windy area you might want to move them to a sunny protected area or build a small plastic wall on the windy side. My neighbour does this with great success with her tomatoes. Hope this helps!
You need to have male flowers open at the same time to pollinate the female flower. If you only have the one squash plant that may be the problem. Any squash plant will do as a pollinator, but you need to have both flowers open at the same time.
