RE: How do you tell if a female has been pollinated?

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I’ve been waiting a week for a female to open and finally it did this morning, but just barely. I did not cover them but it was interesting to watch the bees squished themselves down inside the flower. I tried to ease open the petals and just at the point where I could count the lobes, 5 in all, one of the petals ripped a bit. I waited 2 hours and the bloom finally opened enough for me to get some male parts down in there so I pinched 3 blooms and slathered the female as best I could with such limited space. My last decent looking female was only open 1 day, I pollinated it then it wilted!

 

I didn’t do the finger flick thing to knock pollen in the plant, but I will next time.

 

Just thought I’d share with the newbie crowd. Last year borers got all of my plants; not one pumpkin out of 22 plants. This year, with the help of reading bigpumkins.com messages, I’ve got about 6 pumpkins set using over-the-counter seeds, but they look good so far.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-pumpkins@hort.net [mailto:owner-pumpkins@hort.net]On Behalf Of Glenn Needham
Sent: Monday, July 08, 2002 10:18 PM
To: pumpkins@hort.net
Subject: Re: How do you tell if a female has been pollinated?

 

If you intend to save the seeds and be able to verify the parentage - keep female covered before and after pollination - keep the bees away.

 

Glenn