zucchinis are all male?

[EzzysMom]

We've grown some zucchini plants and they are producing copious flowers, but no zucchini's. I looked at them all one morning and they are all male I think, or at least all the same anyway. How do I fix this so we get some fruit? TIA!

[RosieL]

The male flowers will be on a long stem. The female flowers will be close to the pant's main trunk, and will only open in the morning at the right time when the fruit is pretty small. I usually have 5-8 as many male flowers as I have female. When did the plant start flowering?

[EzzysMom]

A few weeks at least. We're in Boston, don't know if that makes a difference and they've been in the ground a month. I only found anything open when I was out there in the morning. Am I just impatient?

[RosieL]

Well, mine were planted from seed and I had first fruit six weeks later. 

Planted 4/15 from seed

Pic on May 7: 

Pic on May 13: 

And harvest three weeks later. Aren't you guys still getting cold spikes too? I'm *guessing* that you'll start seeing female flowers in the next few days. Check every morning. :)

Something I learned this year: the first sets of fruit often die off without maturing because they're not pollinated. I was so sad, thought something was wrong with my plants since some fruit just started to wild, brown, then rot on the ends when they were about half grown. Someone here told me it just wasn't pollinated, so I started pollinating every morning until I saw bees a'buzzin' around the plants. :)

[RosieL]

For good measure:

Male flower and bee:
http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/249940_10100385301684188_5717300_55769560_1681927_n.jpg

Female flower and bee:
http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/260091_10100386110318678_5717300_55783955_2902943_n.jpg

[EzzysMom]

Thanks for the pictures, they are definitely all male that I saw. The garden is at my mothers house so I can't go check constantly, I'm more there once a week to do weeding and some harvesting. The watering is done automatically. We'll try to get over there again soon

[SweetSilver]

Squash blossoms for quesadillas and soup are from the male flowers, BTW.  Obviously, you need a few to pollinate but you can harvest the extra flowers as a crop!

[shaywyn]

It's pretty common for zucchini to start out with only male blossoms for the first few weeks. I agree, eat 'em!  You can stuff them and then saute them, too. Yum!

[RosieL]

I stuffed a bunch on Wednesday and they were pretty yummy. Goat cheese mixed with cream and chives pipped into the flowers (stamins clipped off). A cup of soda water mixed with a 2/3 a cup of flour for batter (whisk and let settle) and then fry 'em up. SO YUMMY! Impresses the hell out of guests. :)