DOMA Falls! Our Squash Think It Applies To Them!

Squash Blossoms

Today the Supreme Court of the United States issued decisions striking down the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and upholding the decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which overturned the discriminatory change to the California state constitution that prohibited same-sex marriage in California.

It's been a long, hard road to get to this point and the journey is not over yet, because the decision did not go so far as to recognize marriage as a fundamental right for same-sex couples, but it's a significant and welcome milestone on that journey.

So what does this have to do with the garden, you ask?

Well, we're not quite sure why, but both our Delicata Squash and our Clarimore Zucchini have been out of synch this year.  Each squash blossom lasts only about a day, and during the time the flowers are open pollen must be transferred from the male flowers to the female flowers or else the fruit will not set on.

Bees and other pollinators usually do this, but in the past Cindy has assisted them by transferring pollen from one to the other with her paintbrush.  That works if the flowers are both open at the same time.

The problem this year is that both the zucchini and the squash plants, which are in two different raised beds, will have several male flowers open at the same time, or several female flowers, but not one of each.  Cindy tried to refrigerate one of the male squash flowers a couple of weeks ago and use the pollen from it when the next female flower opened, but that experiment didn't work out.

Cindy and I are celebrating the fall of DOMA; we just wish the squash weren't celebrating it, too.