Sunday, July 5, 2009

Sex in the Garden

Finally the foliage has sprung forth in my garden. The green peppers are tall and will probably fall over from top heaviness. The squash is looking great but alas it bears no fruit. At first I thought it had a fungus, but the foliage was growing lush and beautiful. Then peeking underneath I saw a bee, a beautiful buzzing bee and I realized that was maybe the first bee that had touched the tender flowers. Oh sweet tenderness. Later that evening flipping through a magazine there in front of me was the tentilating secret, " How to polinate your non-fruit bearing squash." Because of the bee shortage ( I knew that) your plants may not be receiving the polination that the bees provide by skipping from the male to the female flower. To determine the male flower look for a long slender stem and then find the female flower which will have a slight bulb at the base. Take a small paint brush or q-tip and transfer the yellow powder like pollen from the male flower to the female flower."Yikes right there in black and white, sex in the garden" Oh my. The next morning I rather sheepishly picked up some q-tips and headed to the garden. This is so embarrasing I thought. I looked under the leaves and to my great relief I saw fruit! I dropped the q-tips and ran to the house.

3 comments:

  1. LOL! Imagine sitting here sipping the first mug of morning coffee, fighting the remnants of last night's sleep trying to creep back in, surfing to a preacher's wife's blog, and then reading this headline! Coffee spews! Eyes snap to attention, darting from side to side to see who's watching me read this juicy little morsel. I'm awake at last!

    You sure know how to get my attention! You crack me up!

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  2. This was very cute. Now I know why I found all those q-tips in your garden...

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  3. We have to do something similar with our sweet corn or else it won't produce. Your way seems tame to our emasculation technique (we cut the tassels and run them along the silks.)

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