Why are there only male flowers on my squash and cucumber plants?

This is a very common question for which there no completely satisfactory answer. Most gardeners can distinguish male squash and cucumber flowers, which are simply a flower on a stem, from female flowers, which are attached to a small immature squash or cucumber. Gardener's also know the production of these plants can be increased by transferring the pollen from a male flower to a female flower with small artist's paint brush. But, what if there are no female flowers? First, not to panic! Normally the first 10 to 20 flowers on a plant in the gourd family are male flowers. Thereafter, these plants produce 10 to 20 male flowers for every female flower. The reason for this genetic discrepancy is unknown. The gardener simply has to be patent and let nature take its course, the female flowers will come in time and there in nothing one can do to hasten their arrival. For the sake of completeness I should add, that there are gynoecious varieties of cucumbers that produce only, or mostly, female flowers. These seedless types of cucumbers do not require pollination and thus are ideal plants to grow in a greenhouse. In fact, if they are pollinated the resulting fruit is deformed and bitter tasting. These F1 cucumber hybrids include Dove, Raven, Falcon, Luna, Neptune and Diva. This is an excerpt from my soon to be published book Gardening The Organic way.