While checking on the winter and summer squash, I’m always on the lookout for any female flowers. I want to make sure to hand pollinate them, just to be on the safe side. Especially on a cooler, wet morning like today, when the pollinators aren’t really out much.
This morning, I found two winter squash blossoms to hand pollinate! There are so many male flowers blooming all the time, it’s quite the thing to find a lady in the mix.
I was both happy and frustrated to find one on the G-Star patty pan squash this morning.
There was one, big beautiful flower blooming, with a strong and healthy looking baby squash at the base.
The problem is, there isn’t a single male flower blooming. I could even see another little female flower bud developing, but no male flowers. The only other squash blossoms around are winter squash, and I don’t think using the would work!
Hmm… maybe I can find some male flowers from the green and yellow zucchini plants. They’ve have male flowers, but no female flowers. I think they might be similar enough for pollination to happen.
There are no plans to save seeds, so cross pollination isn’t the issue. I would just like for pollination to happen so the existing squash will actually develop, and not just turn yellow and fall off!
I had another cheerful find this morning.
A single Albion Everbearing strawberry, in the bed that was eaten by deer! The strawberry plants are slowly recovering and blooming, and we have out first strawberry since the destruction. I am really impressed with these strawberries!!
Other than this, there was another tiny harvest of shelling peas, and that’s it. The developing pole beans won’t be ready to harvest for a while, and the bush beans are just starting to open most of their flowers.
I also had to add some support to the Black Cherry tomatoes in the wattle weave bed. I’m doing next to no pruning, mostly because I can’t see into the foliage very well. I know myself well enough to realize I’m as likely to accidently break the main stem while trying to break off any suckers. The plants, including suckers, has gotten so tall, it’s well into the lilac branches above them.
Some of the suckers, however, can’t quite reach, because they’re falling sideways under their own weight. All they needed was for some jute twine to be run around the whole row, with the ends of the twine fastened to branches of the lilac at one end.
So far, we have only one San Marzano tomato ripening. All the other tomatoes have plenty of fruit growing, but everything is still very green.
My family will be very happy once those cherry tomatoes start to ripen!
Me; I’d just like to have some summer squash and beans to harvest!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 