Your Zucchini plant is finally flowering and you can already see just how much harvest you are going to get but then, suddenly, most of your Zucchini blossoms are falling off. Now, you are starting to worry. Will they all fall off? Did you do something wrong?
This exact thing happened to me when I first planted Zucchini in my first garden about six years ago. Back then it was kind of hard for me to find a comprehensive answer to all of these questions. That is why I decided to write this article to help you identify potential problems and to help you resolve them.
Zucchini flowers are falling off because they weren’t pollinated properly or because your plant didn´t get enough nutrition or water to properly form flowers. Keep in mind that it is absolutely normal that some of the flowers on the Zucchini plant, the male blossoms, will fall off. You should only worry if most zucchini flowers fall off the plant.
That was the quick answer if you want more in-depth information about each of these potential issues then read on!
Poor Pollination Can Cause Zucchini Flowers to Fall Off
You don´t need multiple Zucchini plants to ensure proper pollination because the Zucchini plant has both, male and female blossoms, on one plant.
You can identify the male blossoms by their slightly longer and thinner stem.
Female blossoms have a little fruit at their base that will, later on, grow to become the actual Zucchini.
If the flowers of the female plant fall off and no fruit is growing then that is a sure sign that the plant was not properly pollinated.
There can be several reasons why your plant was not pollinated but the most common one is a lack of pollinating insects in your garden. These insects include bees and butterflys.
So you should either try to attract these kinds of insects or you have to manually pollinate your Zucchini plant.
I would recommend the first method as it is generally very beneficial for your garden if you have a lot of these insects in your garden.
To attract insects like bees and butterflies you should plant a few flowers and bushes that attract them. Especially well-smelling flowers and bushes that produce a lot of little blossoms are great for that.
You could also put out some insect feeders and water sources for insects to attract them.
Too Little or Too Much Water Can Cause Zucchini Flowers to Fall Off
Every plant needs water and pretty much every plant will react poorly if it gets either to much or to little water and Zucchini plants are no exception.
Zucchini plants need a lot of water once they start flowering. That is because they will start to build out their fruit and that will cost a lot of energy and water to do.
So you should adapt your watering schedule once you see that the first few flowers are starting to bloom.
So water your Zucchini plant once a day in the morning to about 4 to 5 inches deep. Once the first flowers are building adapt the amount of water you are giving the plant to about 6 to 7 inches deep. If the plant is reacting poorly then use a soil tester to check the moisture and PH of your soil in order to adapt the water amount properly.
Too Little Nutrition Can Cause Problems With Zucchini Flowers
Just like water if you give your plants too little nutrition or if the soil PH content is not the correct one then your plant won´t be doing as well as they could have.
If your soil PH is too far off then your Zucchini Flowers might not bloom properly or your fruit might not form correctly.
So use a soil tester to check the PH value. It should ideally be between 4.5 and 5.5. If it isn’t quite there then try to adapt the value with the relevant fertilizer.
You can get a soil tester from Amazon right here or at your local garden center.
Male Zucchini Blossoms Will Always Fall Off
Now that we covered everything that can cause flowers to fall off I think it´s time to look at when it is absolutely normal that Zucchini flowers fall off.
As I mentioned above, most Zucchini plants have female and male blossoms and only the female flowers will build a fruit.
So the male blossoms will fall off after they were pollinated while the female flowers will build out the fruit at their base.
This means that it is absolutely normal that a few flowers, the male blossoms, fall off while other flowers, the female flowers, will build a fruit that we can later on eat.
Zucchini Flowers Will Eventually All Fall Off
And finally, every flower on the Zucchini plant will eventually fall off after it has been pollinated even the female ones.
The male flowers will start blooming first and the female flowers will follow soon after. This in turn also means that the male flowers will fall off of the plant as well.
The female blossoms will be pollinated but they will stay on the plant for a longer time than the male blossoms.
The female blossoms will only start falling off when the fruit has already started building to medium size.
It is important that the flowers fall off when the fruit has start building because if they don´t fall off, then insects might infect the plant where the flower is attached to the fruit.
The flowers have to fall off when they start to wither. So if you see a withering flower that is still attached to the Zucchini then simply pull it off.
If you don´t do this then the Zucchini might get damaged after a while.
