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Re: Do I need to hand pollinate the flowers?

Lisa:

I'm wondering if your plant is still at the stage where it is only producing
male flowers.  The first few days of flowering are usually all males.  The
females start coming later.  It is easy to tell them apart as the females
have little pumpkins at their base, and of course, the sexual parts inside
are different.  Also, sometimes the first female flowers don't seem to
"take" as well as the later ones.

 Hand pollinating will add extra insurance that the females are recieving
lots of pollen, but it isn't absolutely necessary as bees will most likely
do an adequate job.  If you want to control the parantage of the seed
however, you must use "birth control" by covering the flowers  the night
before they are going to open, hand pollenating them the next morning, then
covering them again until they close up for good.  I use paper lunch bags
for this.

So it may be you are being impatient if you only have male flowers so far.
What I would like to know is where the heck are you to be growing a plant
that is already flowereing!  You are about a month ahead of most of us
"northerners"!!!!

Kurt Frederick
Edmonton, Alberta

At 02:38 PM 5/28/97 -0400, you wrote:
>How long does it take for a pumpkin to develop after the flower closes? Do I
>need to hand pollinate them?  My vines grow flowers and then nothing happens.
> Am I being impatient?
>Thanks,
>Lisa
>
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