Zucchini Love Triangle Saga Continues

Since my last post, my zucchini have grown larger, survived the collapse of one entire section of leaves due to weight and yet another strong rainstorm with high winds. The current problem is zucchini shape. The fruit is not straight and cylindrical and slightly tapered at the stem like it's supposed to be. It's downright narrow at the stem and fat on the flower end.

My oddly shaped zucchini

Now, I've read that bad pollination can cause the zucchini to be thicker at the stem and narrower at the flower end, but I have no idea how I managed to get things the other way. Could it be that my zucchini were pollinated too much?

In checking around, I found this post that explains poor zucchini pollination. These two statements intrigued me:

If there isn't enough pollen to fertilize all the seeds the portion of the fruit that wasn't fertilized will grow disproportional to the rest of the fruit because the seed are not enlarging.

 In zucchini (and likely others) there are two types of pollen those with fast growing pollen tubes and slow growing pollen tubes. When there is a lot of pollen all the seeds are pollinated by fast growing pollen tubes. When there is a small load of pollen the fast and slow tubes can compete and if there isn't enough of either then the zucchini is pollinated from the stem end to the flower end. I know it seems strange the portion of the zucchini closest to the flower is the last to be pollinated.

My best guess given what I have read is that my zucchini started out underpollinated. When I hand pollinated the female flowers, I may have been late. Late meaning that the plant grew unpollinated or underpollinated and then I zapped it with more pollen toward the end. A guess anyway.

On another site, I found a suggestion that might be of value to my low bee activity balcony container garden:

But remember, you can pick zucchinis the day after the flower opens, and eat the tiny fruit. They are much tastier this way, and pollination is then not needed. That's the way to go with zucchinis.

My next question is, is my oddly shaped zucchini rendered inedible? The answer I found is that if it's bitter, don't eat it. Bitter zucchini contains toxins called cucurbitacins. High levels of cucurbitacins can cause an array of unpleasant symptoms. In zucchini, high levels of cucurbitacins are genetic, and not caused by environmental factors like soil pH or fertility. So, it seems that accidental cross-pollination with wild cucurbits (such as inedible gourds) may be the culprit, not under or over pollination. That being the case, it's unlikely my zucchini will make me sick--only if there is a problem with the seeds due to accidental cross-pollination,, but in any event, I am sort of afraid to try it.