My Zucchini Plant the Eunuch

As I've continued on in my gardening adventures, I've been very hopeful about a zucchini plant that's been growing on my balcony. I had lost the battle for zucchini in my community garden plot to some cucumber beetles, so I've had all my hopes riding on this one plant. To my dismay, half of the flowers that bloom have had no fruit on them so I've been cutting them off thinking this would allow the plant to put all it's energy into the flowers with fruit on them. However after about a week, the small zucchini fruit starts to wither and die.

Completely frustrated that I can't seem to grow what is the easiest plant to grow, I started asking around to see if I could figure out what I've been doing wrong. And I discovered I've been castrating my plant! Who knew that a zucchini plant actually puts out two flowers. One flower has all the female parts and ultimately produces the fruit and the other flower has the male parts and really is only good for pollinating the female flower (unless of course you like to fry the flower and eat it). So in other words, I've totally been castrating my plants...and my husband upon learning this has become quite concerned.

All is well now though and I have learned my lesson. Never cut off flowers from a zucchini plant. Luckily zucchini's are quite forgiving.