Sex In The Garden

Female Zucchini Flower

O.K., I know what you're thinking, but it's the Clarimore Zucchini and the Persian Cucumbers.

Cindy noticed the other day that the honey bees all seemed to have congregated on the lavenders in the butterfly garden in the front yard, while the zucchini and cucumber blossoms in the vegetable beds in the back were untouched.  Since the blossoms only last a short time, it's essential that pollen be transferred from the male blossoms to the female ones.  If the bees don't get it done, somebody else (that would be us) has to make sure it happens, so she raided my paintbrush collection and got the pollen transferred.

Male Zucchini Flower

Of course, I had to ask, "how can you tell which is which?"  And, of course, it boils down to the long, narrow stamen of the male and the round pistil of the female blossom.

I guess, after all these years of reading the bawdy bits of Shakespeare's plays, I should have expected it would be something like that.

If the number of blossoms is any gauge, we should have a bumper crop of zucchini again this year.  It's a good thing we like them so much.  Cindy should be able to try another zucchini cream pie.  Yum!