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When I was just a little tyke, my sister (who is about three years older) had a pumpkin patch in our backyard (after letting a pumpkin rot there). Somehow, my sister, who was also very young at the time, knew about using a paintbrush to hand pollinate the squash. To this day, I still remember us flitting around with paintbrushes mushing them into flowers in hopes we would be like bees and help the plant produce pumpkins, which it ultimately did!
For those who aren’t familiar, some plants — including squash, gourds, and even tomatoes– have male and female flowers that rely on bees, bugs and nature to help them pollinate. By using a small paintbrush and dipping it into various flowers you can help things along. Since we’re becoming short on honey bees these days in the US, I believe hand pollinating is a good way to ensure your vegetables produce.
Last year I had terrible luck with pumpkins but this year I’ve already picked my first baby bam pie pumpkin and have several more on the vines starting to get ripe. Was it because I did a little hand pollination to help things along or would my plant have been able to produce without me, we’ll never know. So tell me, gardeners: Do you hand pollinate, and if so what? I didn’t do my tomatoes at all and have tons of them but I don’t like to leave the pumpkins to chance anymore.
Even though we seem to have plenty of pollinating insects around here, my squash weren’t very productive this year. I think I might try hand pollinating them next year to see if they do a little better.
I think tomatoes are pretty good at self-pollinating, so they should need any help.
I’m with you, my tomatoes would take over my whole garden if I gave them any help! A little hand pollination of squash can’t hurt especially if it’s only a few plants. Good luck next year!
Someone quite recently blogged about the Chinese in Szewun (definitely wrong spelling) providence pollinating fruit trees. There was a photo of this man up a tree trying to pollinate the whole tree. The reason the Chinese were doing this was because they had lost all of their bees, probably to insecticide use.
An interesting meme is emerging on the blogosphere about self-pollination.
Nonetheless I enjoyed your blog. Well done!
Lots and lots of places don’t have the bees they used to. Strangely enough, we had a swarm/hive(?) of bees about two years ago in our backyard about two years ago and called the local bee clubs to come take them. They never showed up and eventually the problem went away on its own. However, since then we haven’t seen nearly as many bees in our area! It’s not a good thing at all but I’d also rather not be hosting a swarm.
You should see my blog on collecting a swarm of bees. But anyway, bees are suffering a lot at the moment, through disease, pesticide use and poor bee husbandry. I still think bees will outlast man
I love the memories that you have, it reminds me of how smart you two were as children. You always surprise me even now. Love, Mom.
I would never have thought of manual pollination – what a great idea ——