Pollination by Hand

With the bee problem this year some of us have to resort to pollinating our crops by ourselves. It's very easy, just a little time consuming. For my squash I got a new painting brush - just a small one - and first got pollen from the male plant, then rubbed the brush on the female plant. If you don't know how to tell the difference in a female and male plant of a squash, here are some pictures.

Above is the male flower.

Here is the female flower. Notice the difference?

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Here is an easy way to tell if the flower is female. It has a little bulb at the base of the flower.

Now that you know what to look for, happy pollinating:)

Comments

Anonymous said…

Help the honeybees! Prevent the loss of the world food supply.

Learn how you can help cure Colony Collapse Disorder. What is the bee tree?
thebeetree(dot)org

August 12, 2008 at 6:00 PM

Amanda Kaake said…

I do not believe the bees are just dissapearing. We have personal friends who raise bees way out in the country where no pesticides or genetically modified crops are - and their bees are fine.

I have a friend 10 minutes up the road who bought genetically modified corn that was made to have natural insecticides. She finds dead bees on her corn.

I think it's pretty obvious what's going on. It's whether or not people choose to believe it or not.

August 13, 2008 at 9:22 AM

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