For instance, did you know that members of the cucurbit family, which includes squash and cucumbers, have seperate male and female blossoms on the same plant? That is why you will never have all of your squash blossoms producing fruit. The males are unable to, of course. Most always, the plants put on many male flowers for a couple of weeks before ever making a female flower with the potential for pollination. Often times gardeners think that something must be wrong with their plant because they have so many blooms and no cucumbers.
When you do get both male and female flowers on the plant at the same time, they are usually bee pollinated. A flower usually has to be visited by a bee six or eight times before good pollination occurs. If you aren't noticing many bees, and are concerned that pollen isn't getting transferred, you can always assist nature by using a cotton swab to move the pollen from the male flower to the female flower yourself. It is pretty easy to tell which flowers are which. The female flowers have a tiny immature fruit at the stem of the flower. The male flowers don't. Also, you can tell by looking in the center of the bloom.
Squash blossoms are also edible! There are tons of squash blossom recipes on the internet, and now that you know which flowers are which, you can fry up your excess male flowers without worrying that you are taking away a potential fruit! The photos below show the inside of the female and male squash blossoms.
Female squash blossom
Male squash blossom
At my house, I have a cucumber plant that must have 50 or 60 male blossoms, but only one female. So, I will just have to keep waiting until nature takes its course.
