Sexing Pumpkins

A couple of days ago, a FEMALE pumpkin flower showed its glorious yellow head. I had spoken to colleagues about hand pollination before, and was actually looking forward to experimenting with it.
To the left is a female flower, recognisable by its bright orange "bits" (insert scientific term here). The other obvious way of recognising the female bloom is by the fruit attached to the base of the flowerhead. As shown in the following picture below.

In order to be fertilised, the female needs the pollen from the male flower. This is how bees are invaluable to gardeners, as they do nature's work. But where bees are lacking, the human touch may be substituted. I read in one gardening book that a fine brush may be used to collect the male pollen in order to 'dab' onto the female. Thus began my foray into the world of "pumpkin sex"!

Male flowers are the same size and colour as the females, but they have sticky pollen on their stamens located in the centre of the bloom.

So.. in order to simulate "pumpkin sex", load up a fine brush with the pollen from the male flower, like the picture on the right. I used pollen from two different males for variety. After all, we females can afford to be a little choosy, right? ;)

The resulting mix should look something like the picture below. You can see the yellow pollen on the orange female bits if you look closely.

FERTILISED FEMALE FLOWER

Unfortunately, whether due to my inexperience or intrusive ants, the flower which I pollinated did not bear fully-formed fruit (10 days later). I noticed about two hours after I had 'brushed' the female flower, that an army of ants had virtually covered the entire orange bits of the female with dirt which they had trekked into the bloom. Stupid ants. I hope that that's all they will do to interfere with my plants at this stage...

Pumpkin Patch Creation

Well I planted my first actual plants in the yard. I allocated an area next to the clothesline which we've named the "Pumpkin Patch". I've been successfully germinating some butternut pumpkin seeds in egg cartons, thanks to some encouraging words from a kids' gardening book. Unusual I think, but original.. it's called "How to Guzzle your Garden", by Jackie French. The author basically sees gardening as an enjoyable pastime, likening it to eating. I even thought of planting herbs in old joggers, as suggested by the book, but have since put it on the backburner. It would give the yard an interesting look!
Out of the 12 little eggholders in the carton, 6 have successfully grown into seedlings about 6cms high. I figured it was time I transferred them into the garden, and prepared an area about 1m x 1.5ms. I filled it with topsoil, manure and topped it with organic compost. It was a bit difficult getting the seedlings out of the eggholders, as the potting mix was shallow and not very compact, but I did my best. There were tiny, ever-so-fine roots which actually extended much longer than I thought from such a small seedling! As it was getting dark by the time I actually got all six seedlings into the ground, I just watered them - finally bought a watering can today - and breathed a huge sigh of relief. I will mulch them tomorrow with some of the hay bale. But I'm happy to say that butternut pumpkin is IN THE GARDEN! Whether or not it will survive is another story.

BABY PUMPKINS