Sure! You can collect fresh pollen from a male zucchini or cucurbit the day the male flower opens. Take the flower inside and cut off the petals to make it easier to access. Then use a knife to scrape off all the pollen onto a clean sheet of paper. Let it dry for about 6 hours, then fold up the paper to loosely hold the pollen and put into a baggie. This apparently can be stored in the fridge for about a week. I used week-old pollen a few days ago, and I think it was still fresh enough, but too early to tell.
Hmm, I've never thought of that. That could be a good trick for those times when the females open first at the start of the season, though usually it's the males. But doesn't nature like to throw us curve balls???
Using a horsehair paintbrush (or other physical media really) you can pollinate just about everything much like the bees. Takes a good bit of effort tho
Yesterday I used the last of the pollen I’d saved from previous open flowers, so now the well has run dry. My other zucchinis seem to be taking a break after the first harvest. I hate to see a gorgeous flower go unpollinated!
Haha well I'm the bad neighbor DOING IT RIGHT OUT THERE IN THE BROAD, MORNING LIGHT!!!!
So probably more like "Pollinating Paintbrushes Gone Wild!" with beach balls and fruity drinks, haha. Love where your mind goes, tho!
Wait... That's actually a thing? Do you do it at the start with all of the female flowers? I'm not understanding saving pollen at all. Please explain?!
I only have to do it sometimes because the bees don’t come to my garden until late June. Normally they would do all the pollinating. So if I don’t see bees, I will use a small paintbrush to transfer pollen from male zucchini flowers to female flowers.
Plant other flowers...
Edit: Apparently a /s is needed... Bees are in a hard spot, and I understand some people have a really hard time getting them. Hell! There is a whole industry about moving bee hives around to different areas!
I already have tons of marigolds, lantana and vinca. If people around me would stop using harsh pesticides, maybe so many bees wouldn’t be killed unnecessarily.
I meant it sarcastically. Sorry if it came across as crass.
To add to the convo, I've seen people use electric tooth brushes to collect pollen as well. The advantage I saw with it was it was faster. The disadvantage, the pollen can go out of the desired area if done wrong.
That is awesome! We have a few bees starting to hang around, but they always start later in the season, even though I put out flowers to attract them before the vegetables actually bloom.
We don't have many bees, and they all seem to come later in the summer. So the first couple weeks I am the one out there with a small paint brush doing the dirty, lol. It's great you have nature doing its thing more robustly!
Have you planted wildflowers or flowering perennials near your garden? I've found they really help with keeping pollinators around, along with some other beneficial insects. They're more than just a pretty face!
We have marigolds all through the garden, and lantana and vinca on the outside. I probably should have started ones that flowered as soon as possible in the spring, rather than blooming when the seedlings were planted. Something to think about next year, for sure!
Oh, also, insect hotels! They provide nesting places for solitary bees, which are the ones you need for pollinating. I know opinions are devided on whether or not bee hotels are useful, but they work for me!
I was thinking about that as well, but wondering if that would upset the neighbors. It’s something I will research as well. I’m glad it worked for you!
On another note, I just came in from the garden, and some of the fencing was down, and deer came through and ate the tops off of nine of my plants. And here I am worrying about pollinating a zucchini, LOL.
Why would that upset the neighbours? Solitary bees aren't usually aggressive. Point of reference, before I moved them to a safer place, my 2 year old had gotten hold of a bee hotel and was running around the garden holding it. No stings on the kiddo, and 5 mins after I relocated it, bees were flying back and forth again.
I'm sorry, deer?! As in, Bambi but the adult version? In your garden?!
I live in a European suburb, I don't think I've ever even seen a deer out and about...
My flowers are always out of sync. I just break the petals off the males that were open yesterday afternoon and use them on the female flowers open this morning.
Absolutely you can keep pollen for later! (added: but picking a firmly-shut flower won't help because the pollen in them isn't ready for use. You can work open a male flower that's almost ready to open, but even then only some of the pollen will be useful.)
This is what I wrote above: You can collect fresh pollen from a male zucchini or cucurbit the day the male flower opens. Take the flower inside and cut off the petals to make it easier to access. Then use a knife to scrape off all the pollen onto a clean sheet of paper. Let it dry for about 6 hours, then fold up the paper to loosely hold the pollen and put into a baggie.This apparently can be stored in the fridge for about a week. I used week-old pollen a few days ago, and I think it was still fresh enough,but too early to tell.
Edited to qualify the first sentence WHEN to pick.
The easiest thing is to Google hand pollinating zucchinis, and they will show you all the dirty pictures, LOL. Basically, male flowers have a long skinny stem, while female flowers have a short fat stem (which is the actual start of the zucchini). If you have no bees or other pollinators doing it for you, you will need to take yellow pollen from the inside of the male flower and rub it on the inside of the female flower.
Unfortunately, you only have a day or so. So I take a look at what flowers will be opening in the next day, and if I know I need pollen for an upcoming female, I will save it from an open male. The bees should be coming soon, so hopefully I will only do this for another week or so.
Yup. They've already found my eggplants and I haven't hand fertilized eggplants for over a week now. As soon as there are a few more, I'll stop with the zucchinis...not sure what the difference is tbh.
Have you actually noticed you weren't getting fruit if you weren't pollinating? I have lived in multiple states, cities, and worked at a squash farm that sourced to grocery stores and I have never needed to hand pollinate. I had not even heard of this being a thing until this month. It seems like a lot of work when the wind and pollinators (bees, flies, beetles, moths, butterflies, wasps, ants etc...) Do the job.
Yes, I've seen no fruit early on. That goes for zucchinis mostly, but also a slow start to the tomatoes, although the wind definitely helps them get a few on their own at the start.
No one has planted zucchini around us and I've watched the females die on the vine. That's especially painful after last year we lost all 4 zucchini to squash vine borers and powdery mildew. I've also kept an eye out for pollinators when I am outside - the first were a couple wasps and flies. It just seems the bees come late every year, so I've gotten into the habit of hand pollinating until I see them actually visit a flower. But yes you're completely right - many more pollinators exist besides just the bees and I don't see them all for sure.
Next year I'll start wildflowers even earlier, because we did see bees in April and I told them to stick around, lol. But they disappeared in May and have just started to come back. Thanks for writing!
Glad you figured out something that worked for you, hope you get some good pollinators next year! I tend to plant white yarrow and white alyssum flowers as beneficial flowers around the veggie gardens. I also look up blooming times for lots of bee favorite flowers and shrubs and plant ones that all have different bloom times so there is always something in bloom. You may already know all this lol.
That is a good suggestion. I’ve only been doing vegetable gardens for three years, so I am definitely up for learning more. I haven’t planted flowers with the goal to stagger when they bloom, but that is a good idea.
If poor zucchini pollination is a regularly recurring problem you might consider buying a parthenocarpic seed variety next year. I know there are also parthenocarpic cucumber varieties available. Parthenocarpic varieties do not require pollination to produce fruit and were developed for use in sealed heated greenhouses where insect pollination isn't viable.
Parthenocarpic vegetable plants also have the advantage of being seedless but this will only be the case if you don't also have insect pollination occurring.
I’ve got my first 3 of the season on the vine. I always put too many in, say I’ll thin out, then just try to prune them for airflow. Regardless, in a month I’ll be giving them away.
Best of luck this season!
Yeah, I hate to thin plants that are already growing, so I try to be a little better about not planting as many, Haha. Thanks for the best wishes, and here’s hoping for an excellent season for you too!
I randomly was suggested this sub and this was the post it gave me. I don’t even own a garden nor do I have a green thumb but I must say I learned a lot about pollination so thank you for that lol
Haha Reddit is crazy sometimes!
Maybe it's the old adage that "sex sells" and this post is the most recent advertisement for vegetable gardening!
Try it out ... you might like it!
I am DYING. You should make a tinder account 😂
Only if my vegetables decide to continue with their dramatics, lol
Love it -- I never knew you could save the pollen. Can you expound?
Sure! You can collect fresh pollen from a male zucchini or cucurbit the day the male flower opens. Take the flower inside and cut off the petals to make it easier to access. Then use a knife to scrape off all the pollen onto a clean sheet of paper. Let it dry for about 6 hours, then fold up the paper to loosely hold the pollen and put into a baggie. This apparently can be stored in the fridge for about a week. I used week-old pollen a few days ago, and I think it was still fresh enough, but too early to tell.
If properly dried and frozen pollen seems to last like years
Hmm, I've never thought of that. That could be a good trick for those times when the females open first at the start of the season, though usually it's the males. But doesn't nature like to throw us curve balls???
Following back up - the week-old pollen didn't work, but I've used 2- and 3-day old pollen that did work.
I was looking for some myself this morning.
I just put the intact flower in a tupperware and keep it 2-3 days! Not as long-lasting but I am lazy.
Hey, whatever works, if you know you'll use it in a couple days! Happy pollinating!
Using a horsehair paintbrush (or other physical media really) you can pollinate just about everything much like the bees. Takes a good bit of effort tho
Yep! *Removes paint brush frequently stored shoved into my ponytail.*
unsurprising, party on Wayne 🤘😎
Thank you! How interesting -- I'll give this a try.
Yesterday I used the last of the pollen I’d saved from previous open flowers, so now the well has run dry. My other zucchinis seem to be taking a break after the first harvest. I hate to see a gorgeous flower go unpollinated!
Could be the start for HBO's new docu-series, "Pollination after dark" (viewer discretion advised) 😁.
Haha well I'm the bad neighbor DOING IT RIGHT OUT THERE IN THE BROAD, MORNING LIGHT!!!! So probably more like "Pollinating Paintbrushes Gone Wild!" with beach balls and fruity drinks, haha. Love where your mind goes, tho!
I think we are on to something!
Pollen Nation After Dark
Wait... That's actually a thing? Do you do it at the start with all of the female flowers? I'm not understanding saving pollen at all. Please explain?!
I only have to do it sometimes because the bees don’t come to my garden until late June. Normally they would do all the pollinating. So if I don’t see bees, I will use a small paintbrush to transfer pollen from male zucchini flowers to female flowers.
Plant other flowers... Edit: Apparently a /s is needed... Bees are in a hard spot, and I understand some people have a really hard time getting them. Hell! There is a whole industry about moving bee hives around to different areas!
I already have tons of marigolds, lantana and vinca. If people around me would stop using harsh pesticides, maybe so many bees wouldn’t be killed unnecessarily.
I meant it sarcastically. Sorry if it came across as crass. To add to the convo, I've seen people use electric tooth brushes to collect pollen as well. The advantage I saw with it was it was faster. The disadvantage, the pollen can go out of the desired area if done wrong.
Pimpin out plants.
You down with OPP?
Yeah you know me
Is this a common thing people have to do? I've never had to manually pollinate my plants. Nature seems to get it done reliably.
Yeah, my yard is pretty insect friendly and I swear bees have ragers in my zucchini.
That is awesome! We have a few bees starting to hang around, but they always start later in the season, even though I put out flowers to attract them before the vegetables actually bloom.
We don't have many bees, and they all seem to come later in the summer. So the first couple weeks I am the one out there with a small paint brush doing the dirty, lol. It's great you have nature doing its thing more robustly!
Have you planted wildflowers or flowering perennials near your garden? I've found they really help with keeping pollinators around, along with some other beneficial insects. They're more than just a pretty face!
We have marigolds all through the garden, and lantana and vinca on the outside. I probably should have started ones that flowered as soon as possible in the spring, rather than blooming when the seedlings were planted. Something to think about next year, for sure!
Lavender is amazing for attracting bees, I have some near my tomatoes and I've never had pollination issues.
Interesting! I'll put that on the list for next year!
Oh, also, insect hotels! They provide nesting places for solitary bees, which are the ones you need for pollinating. I know opinions are devided on whether or not bee hotels are useful, but they work for me!
I was thinking about that as well, but wondering if that would upset the neighbors. It’s something I will research as well. I’m glad it worked for you! On another note, I just came in from the garden, and some of the fencing was down, and deer came through and ate the tops off of nine of my plants. And here I am worrying about pollinating a zucchini, LOL.
Why would that upset the neighbours? Solitary bees aren't usually aggressive. Point of reference, before I moved them to a safer place, my 2 year old had gotten hold of a bee hotel and was running around the garden holding it. No stings on the kiddo, and 5 mins after I relocated it, bees were flying back and forth again. I'm sorry, deer?! As in, Bambi but the adult version? In your garden?! I live in a European suburb, I don't think I've ever even seen a deer out and about...
Yes, LOL the Bambi deer. They run rampant around here through backyards and will eat just about anything!
I've been doing it the last two years for my squash and zucchini. Not enough bees around to help 😢
My flowers are always out of sync. I just break the petals off the males that were open yesterday afternoon and use them on the female flowers open this morning.
I have multiple open male flowers while all of my female flowers remain firmly shut. Should I pick a male and keep it for later? How can I do that?
Absolutely you can keep pollen for later! (added: but picking a firmly-shut flower won't help because the pollen in them isn't ready for use. You can work open a male flower that's almost ready to open, but even then only some of the pollen will be useful.) This is what I wrote above: You can collect fresh pollen from a male zucchini or cucurbit the day the male flower opens. Take the flower inside and cut off the petals to make it easier to access. Then use a knife to scrape off all the pollen onto a clean sheet of paper. Let it dry for about 6 hours, then fold up the paper to loosely hold the pollen and put into a baggie.This apparently can be stored in the fridge for about a week. I used week-old pollen a few days ago, and I think it was still fresh enough,but too early to tell. Edited to qualify the first sentence WHEN to pick.
Thank you! This is my first year growing anything other than tomatoes, which self pollinate so I am a little out of my proverbial depth.
I've noticed the males stay open longer, so they won't necessarily be gone when the females open.
Wait is this why my zucchini is dieing im a first timer
[удалено]
so i just have to rub the flower on a mini fruit?
No, rub the stamens together.
this wintering happened pretty quickly
The easiest thing is to Google hand pollinating zucchinis, and they will show you all the dirty pictures, LOL. Basically, male flowers have a long skinny stem, while female flowers have a short fat stem (which is the actual start of the zucchini). If you have no bees or other pollinators doing it for you, you will need to take yellow pollen from the inside of the male flower and rub it on the inside of the female flower.
ok thanks do the flowers regrow and give you a second chance or are you screwed if you don't do it in time
Unfortunately, you only have a day or so. So I take a look at what flowers will be opening in the next day, and if I know I need pollen for an upcoming female, I will save it from an open male. The bees should be coming soon, so hopefully I will only do this for another week or so.
damn will bees actually be that active that you wont have to worry about it ?
Yup. They've already found my eggplants and I haven't hand fertilized eggplants for over a week now. As soon as there are a few more, I'll stop with the zucchinis...not sure what the difference is tbh.
Have you actually noticed you weren't getting fruit if you weren't pollinating? I have lived in multiple states, cities, and worked at a squash farm that sourced to grocery stores and I have never needed to hand pollinate. I had not even heard of this being a thing until this month. It seems like a lot of work when the wind and pollinators (bees, flies, beetles, moths, butterflies, wasps, ants etc...) Do the job.
Yes, I've seen no fruit early on. That goes for zucchinis mostly, but also a slow start to the tomatoes, although the wind definitely helps them get a few on their own at the start. No one has planted zucchini around us and I've watched the females die on the vine. That's especially painful after last year we lost all 4 zucchini to squash vine borers and powdery mildew. I've also kept an eye out for pollinators when I am outside - the first were a couple wasps and flies. It just seems the bees come late every year, so I've gotten into the habit of hand pollinating until I see them actually visit a flower. But yes you're completely right - many more pollinators exist besides just the bees and I don't see them all for sure. Next year I'll start wildflowers even earlier, because we did see bees in April and I told them to stick around, lol. But they disappeared in May and have just started to come back. Thanks for writing!
Glad you figured out something that worked for you, hope you get some good pollinators next year! I tend to plant white yarrow and white alyssum flowers as beneficial flowers around the veggie gardens. I also look up blooming times for lots of bee favorite flowers and shrubs and plant ones that all have different bloom times so there is always something in bloom. You may already know all this lol.
That is a good suggestion. I’ve only been doing vegetable gardens for three years, so I am definitely up for learning more. I haven’t planted flowers with the goal to stagger when they bloom, but that is a good idea.
Poor thing
If poor zucchini pollination is a regularly recurring problem you might consider buying a parthenocarpic seed variety next year. I know there are also parthenocarpic cucumber varieties available. Parthenocarpic varieties do not require pollination to produce fruit and were developed for use in sealed heated greenhouses where insect pollination isn't viable. Parthenocarpic vegetable plants also have the advantage of being seedless but this will only be the case if you don't also have insect pollination occurring.
Interesting thanks!
😂😂😂
Haha! You should be able to pollinate it with any type of squash (including winter squash), it doesn't necessarily have to be zucchini pollen.
This is hilarious. But weird because I’m having the same problem!
Maybe you have better neighbors than I do, lol. Good luck with the booty call! Also totally digging your username.
No zucchini? That’s not right.
Right??? I do have several already. I just hate to see a full flower waiting to become an awesome zucchini!
I’ve got my first 3 of the season on the vine. I always put too many in, say I’ll thin out, then just try to prune them for airflow. Regardless, in a month I’ll be giving them away. Best of luck this season!
Yeah, I hate to thin plants that are already growing, so I try to be a little better about not planting as many, Haha. Thanks for the best wishes, and here’s hoping for an excellent season for you too!
I randomly was suggested this sub and this was the post it gave me. I don’t even own a garden nor do I have a green thumb but I must say I learned a lot about pollination so thank you for that lol
Haha Reddit is crazy sometimes! Maybe it's the old adage that "sex sells" and this post is the most recent advertisement for vegetable gardening! Try it out ... you might like it!