How do you know that pollination is happening?

[obsessed]

My garden is looking great. Every moring there is a ton of zukes and cuke blossoms and everything is green and healthy looking. I don't have an infestation of anything. But something is amiss.

With all the blooming there is just no fruiting. Why? I am confused cause my tomatoes are fruiting.

 

[bid]

Do you see any bees (or other pollinators) busy on those blooms? That's a pretty good sign that pollination is occuring. I sometimes have poor pollination very early on as the bees haven't seemed to show up yet. As the season goes along, some actually "sleep" inside the squash blossoms overnight. Also cukes and zukes will produce a lot of male flowers earlier than they begin to produce female flowers. Tomatos can pollinate wind aided as the mechanism by which they release pollen is slightly different from some other common garden veggy varieties.

 

[jlmann]

Do you see bees working in your garden? They really work on squash and zuke blossoms a lot. If pollination has occurred , most varieties of squash grow very quickly so I think you would have them in about a week. Have you considered hand pollinating them? You can pull a male flower and just hold it by the stem then gently push it in to the female flower and kind of move it around a little. I've never had to do it around here but I'm pretty sure I remember reading that it could be done.

As for the tomatoes, they are pretty self fertile. I think they have both male and female parts in each bloom???? But I'm not sure. You can buy tomato " blossom set spray" and you just kind of mist them with it and you have tomatoes, so I guess they could be getting pollinated by wind/rain.

Was it you that posted in another thread about corn? Corn is wind pollinated. It does better if it is in several rows as opposed to being in just one long row. I try to plant at least 4 rows, even if they are only 5 ft. long. Some people even plant corn in "blocks" with only 8-10" between each plant. If you have your corn in one long row you could always hand polinate it too. Once it starts to make "silk" along the stalk( female blossoms) you could break off a "tassel" (male blossom) and dust the silk with it.

Hope you get your pollination issues worked out. I'm afraid if honey bees don't soon make a recovery we are all going to be having the same problems.
Sorry for the long post. I'm a windbag

 

[GrowinVeggiesInSC]

My garden is looking great. Every moring there is a ton of zukes and cuke blossoms and everything is green and healthy looking. I don't have an infestation of anything. But something is amiss.

With all the blooming there is just no fruiting. Why? I am confused cause my tomatoes are fruiting.

I posted a reply in the other thread, too.
You've already gotten a great deal of information here, but I just wanted to reiterate that cukes, zukes and corn have seperate male and female flowers, whereas tomatoes have male and female parts in the same flower. Since the male and female parts are so close together, pollination happens much easier.

My tomatoes are fruiting, but my cucurbits are slow to follow. I have loads of male flowers and only a few females. But, as the post above stated, the females will soon start blooming more.

 

[obsessed]

I have not seen any bees at all here. And I am a moderate novice gardener. I know how fast cukes can grow. I have begun hand pollinating my squash and attempting my cukes but I hope those bees show up before my watermelon flowers.

I never really thought about how important bee and other pollinators are. I think I will make a greater effort to build a pollinator garden along with my veggies.

 

[jlmann]

I was reading a very interesting article about mason bees yesterday , and it seems they are very easy to get started with. I found it by googling "mason bees" and I think I looked at the article from washington state university. If I remember right about all they need is some wood with 3/8" holes drilled in it and access to mud to lay their eggs. Once you have a good population you can use drinking straws- I'm assuming packed in a box or something. From what I read (I'm bad for "skimming") it seems they are a very efficient polinator requiring only 500-600 per acre vs.up to 20,000 honeybees per acre. Check it out if you have the time.

 

[obsessed]

Thanks, I will check it out. I don't know how my neighbors will take it. They think I already have enough pets.