Courgettes & Squashes

Female flower soon to open on Spaghetti Squash

You have no idea how long I have been waiting to see this.

FINALLY.  Ladies arrive on the squash and courgettes.

My courgettes always seem to have the male ones out for a month or two, then usually when the female ones come along, they've stopped producing male flowers, which obviously causes some issues...BUT there are still some with male flowers on, as well as the females, so fingers crossed I can pollinate something.  I'm not sure if both the courgettes and squash have the male flowers remaining though, as I've stuck them all together and not really looked at the labels...so might end up with some interesting hybridisation, but we'll see if anything takes at all.

Spaghetti Squash leaf compared with my hand

These guys are a bit behind because the first set of squashes and courgettes never germinated.  I don't know if it was still too cold because we had snow until so late in the year this year, or just bad seeds or what.  But they're a bit behind.  So I was thrilled to see flowers appear at the end of July.

Is it normal for the male ones to be out so long before female flowers appear? (Literally 4 months)  Or is this a container growing kind of issue?  I'm hoping to plant out the courgettes and squashes in raised beds next year, and maybe start them off in the house instead of the greenhouse, to counteract the potentially long-assed winter again.

Not expecting much to come of these now its pretty cold.  I'd be lucky to get something small to harvest at all now.