Container Gardening

Under normal circumstances, summer squash will thrive on their own. Occasionally, however, you will need to help them along. If your plants are too well sheltered from wind and insects to pollinate on their own, this help may extend to hand-pollinating your squash.

The first question, when growing squash, is whether hand-pollination is necessary. Your squash will not produce fruit under any circumstances if it does not have both male and female flowers on it yet. Just having a number of flowers does not guarantee that you have both male and female flowers: growing squash plants often produce many male flowers before producing their first female flower.

Distinguishing male flowers from female is fairly simple. Male flowers grow directly from a stem. Female flowers have a little fruit between the stem and the flower, from which a full squash will form if the flower is pollinated. If you have both male and female flowers, but none of the little fruits on the female flowers are maturing, you may need to help nature along.

There are two ways to hand-pollinate your squash.  It’s always best to hand-pollinate early in the morning, when the flowers are open.

The first method is simplest: pick the male flower and remove all petals from it.  You will be left with the stamen of the flower, a little yellow spike covered lightly with pollen, which looks like yellow dust.  Touch the stamen to the center of a female flower.  Leave the female flower to ripen into a squash.

The second method is a bit more complicated, but leaves the male flowers intact, in case you want them for either ornamentation or eating (you can eat squash flowers either plain or lightly cooked).  Instead of picking the flower and directly touching the stamen to the female flower, you will play insect.  Using a cotton swab, lightly touch the stamen of a male flower, picking up a bit of the pollen.  With the cotton swab, brush the center of the female flower, transferring the pollen over.  This is the same way that bees pollinate plants, by moving from flower to flower, bringing a residue of pollen along with them.

The very first vegetable I ever grew on my own was summer squash.  I was around 10, and the site of my garden was incredibly impractical.  I planted broccoli, corn, strawberries, brussel sprouts, zucchini, and crookneck squash.  The zucchini and crookneck squash fed my family all summer.  Nothing else had any yield at all.

Ever since then, every garden I’ve ever planted has had squashes in a place of pride.  Whatever goes wrong with the rest of my garden, I know I can get some kind of yield from the squash.  And I always have.

But can you grow good squash in a container garden?  Absolutely!  In fact, the nature of summer squashes makes them ideal for container growing.

Preparing

Before you get started, you’ll need to make sure you have the following items:

• Potting mix
• Squash seeds or seedlings
• A good-sized container — 2-4 gallons is enough for most squash, but I prefer to get 6+ gallon containers and plant a few squash together.

Choose a location that gets plenty of sun.

Planting

Squash are very easy to grow from seed, but if you want to start from seedlings you can save some time.

Plant 4-5 seeds per container, sowing them around an inch deep.  The potting mix shouldn’t be heavily packed above them.  Water that day and every 2-3 days after that if there’s no rain.  In around a week, you should see vines popping up, and then leaves will form shortly afterward.  Thin the seedlings, keeping the best 2-3 plants.

Growing

Summer squash are hungry plants.  They love fertilizer, sun, and water.  Weeding and watering regularly will help the squash plant to thrive.

Container garden squash can take two forms.  If you choose bush plants, the leaves will spread to tumble out of the container in time.  If you choose vining plants, you can train them to climb trellises or posts.

Tip: Vining squash can root all along their vines.  If you bury a few inches of vine in the soil, you will wind up with a much healthier and sturdier root system.

Harvesting

It takes summer squashes 45-60 days to reach maturity, depending on the variety.

The first few flowers you see on the plant will probably be male.  You can recognize female flowers by a swelling at the base, which male flowers will not have.  Male flowers will never produce fruit, but male zucchini flowers can be harvested for eating.  They can be fried or served fresh with salads.

Summer squashes will grow very large, but they are at their best if you harvest them smaller: around 8-10 inches long.  Pick them right before preparing for best flavor.