News Article for May 4, 2009 from LSU AgCenter County Agent Kenny Sharpe of Livingston Parish:
For the early birds some of their vegetables are starting to be harvested. Green beans, new potatoes and squash were in abundance at the farmers market this past weekend. Some of the farmers tell me that some of the early tomatoes could be ready about the third week of May, weather permitting.
I have heard from several of you who are anxiously awaiting the fruits of your own labor. Squash are kind of like the watched pot that never boils. You see the plants up big and healthy and blooming but yet there are no squash.
Squash is a monecious plant. That means it has separate male and female flowers on the same plant. The female flowers will have a small fruit at the end of the bloom, and the male flower will be a flower on a stem. In the early spring you will usually get mostly female flowers with few or no male flowers initially.
In the absence of male blooms the fruit will not be pollinated and the fruit will be misshapen, have no seeds and will fall off. In a week or two you will get the male flowers. Bees are required to move the pollen between flowers. Once all these factors are in place you will get pollination and normal fruit production.
There is another common problem with similar symptoms. In this case the squash fruit will appear but will not grow. I would look for signs for the squash vine borer. You will see holes or slits in the base of the plants. The moth lays eggs at the base of the squash plant and the larvae will hatch and then bore into the stalk. Once inside the borer grows and feeds on the plant juices, taking away the energy needed for fruit production.
If you cut into the stalk at the entry point you can find the larvae. There is no good control once they have bored inside the plant. Prevention is the key. Spray the base of the plants with Sevin once you have several true leaves.
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Each year about this time I hear from gardeners who call to tell me that their tomatoes have cross-pollinated with their potatoes and the results is a tomato-like fruit growing on their Irish potato plants.
They do see a tomato-like fruit, but it is not the result of cross-pollination. What they are seeing is the fruiting structure of the potato. The potato flower looks similar to the tomato flower, only a different color. The flower is pollinated and fertilized the same way and when successful you can get this tomato-looking fruiting structure. It could mature under ideal growing conditions, but most plants will die off soon after flowering as the potato tubers mature underground.
For more information on these or related topics contact Kenny at 225-686-3020.