Hand-Pollinating Your Squash
Under normal circumstances, summer squash will thrive on their own. Occasionally, however, you will need to help them along. If your plants are too well sheltered from wind and insects to pollinate on their own, this help may extend to hand-pollinating your squash.
The first question, when growing squash, is whether hand-pollination is necessary. Your squash will not produce fruit under any circumstances if it does not have both male and female flowers on it yet. Just having a number of flowers does not guarantee that you have both male and female flowers: growing squash plants often produce many male flowers before producing their first female flower.
Distinguishing male flowers from female is fairly simple. Male flowers grow directly from a stem. Female flowers have a little fruit between the stem and the flower, from which a full squash will form if the flower is pollinated. If you have both male and female flowers, but none of the little fruits on the female flowers are maturing, you may need to help nature along.
There are two ways to hand-pollinate your squash. It’s always best to hand-pollinate early in the morning, when the flowers are open.
The first method is simplest: pick the male flower and remove all petals from it. You will be left with the stamen of the flower, a little yellow spike covered lightly with pollen, which looks like yellow dust. Touch the stamen to the center of a female flower. Leave the female flower to ripen into a squash.
The second method is a bit more complicated, but leaves the male flowers intact, in case you want them for either ornamentation or eating (you can eat squash flowers either plain or lightly cooked). Instead of picking the flower and directly touching the stamen to the female flower, you will play insect. Using a cotton swab, lightly touch the stamen of a male flower, picking up a bit of the pollen. With the cotton swab, brush the center of the female flower, transferring the pollen over. This is the same way that bees pollinate plants, by moving from flower to flower, bringing a residue of pollen along with them.
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The first question, when growing squash, is whether hand-pollination is necessary. Your squash will not produce fruit under any circumstances if it does not have both male and female flowers on it yet. Just having a number of flowers does not guarantee that you have both male and female flowers: growing squash plants often produce many male flowers before producing their first female flower.
Distinguishing male flowers from female is fairly simple. Male flowers grow directly from a stem. Female flowers have a little fruit between the stem and the flower, from which a full squash will form if the flower is pollinated. If you have both male and female flowers, but none of the little fruits on the female flowers are maturing, you may need to help nature along.
There are two ways to hand-pollinate your squash. It’s always best to hand-pollinate early in the morning, when the flowers are open.
The first method is simplest: pick the male flower and remove all petals from it. You will be left with the stamen of the flower, a little yellow spike covered lightly with pollen, which looks like yellow dust. Touch the stamen to the center of a female flower. Leave the female flower to ripen into a squash.
The second method is a bit more complicated, but leaves the male flowers intact, in case you want them for either ornamentation or eating (you can eat squash flowers either plain or lightly cooked). Instead of picking the flower and directly touching the stamen to the female flower, you will play insect. Using a cotton swab, lightly touch the stamen of a male flower, picking up a bit of the pollen. With the cotton swab, brush the center of the female flower, transferring the pollen over. This is the same way that bees pollinate plants, by moving from flower to flower, bringing a residue of pollen along with them.
Visit this site to get landscape design ideas to transform your garden
Read Also: What Gardening Tools Do You Need?