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Re: Cross Pollination

Selena said,
>I have heard that you can plant different kinds of corn if you plant
>them several weeks apart, would this work with tomatoes and squash, too?

Instinctively, I don't think the process will work with tomatoes or squash.
The corn in farmers' fields (admittedly it's mostly a single variety on
view) comes "into tassel" all at once, and that's the stage where
pollination occurs.  But tomatoes and (to a lesser extent) squash put out
new blossoms steadily all summer long once they get cranked up for the season.

So sequential corn planting of different varieties would foil cross
pollination if the varieties were not in tassel at the same time.  But you
couldn't count on toms to blossom at a single short moment, so sequential
planting wouldn't prevent cross pollination.  Even determinate tomatoes
don't flower all at once.

In my experience, squash cranks up early and either succumbs to borers or
completes its fruiting cycle in the early summer and dies naturally.  I've
never tried a second complete planting of squash in one season, but I know
it can be done.  My husband's aunt did it accidentally with a vegetable
squash we gave her.

Our veggie squash produced incredible 30-foot runners that left our garden
entirely and sped across the grass.  Around July 20, we gave his aunt in
Philadelphia a whole ripe fruit.  She ate it and dumped the rind and seeds
on her compost pile.  Around Labor Day she happened to visit the compost
pile and notice an adult veggie squash vine with ripe fruit on it....

--Janet


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Janet Wintermute             jwintermute@ids2.idsonline.com
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