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Aya
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Time Sensitive Pumpkin Question..Please Help!

So I've noticed on my one pumpkin plant that each flower opens individually, and closes again within 24 hours. I've never seen two flowers open at the same time. This morning I woke up to the one female flower on my entire plant open. Its been pretty rainy all day so I'm not sure if I need to hand pollinate it, by trying to pry open a male flower or if I should just let it close up and see if my fruit still develops. Any suggestions?

SOB
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Personally, I would let nature run its course and see what happens...

BP
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Normally I would say the same as SOB, but this year I haven't seen one single honey bee. Not on my balcony garden or in my Mothers garden. Talking to her earlier today I was telling her about my 5 gallon bucket cucumbers that are 7 foot tall and how every cuke I have hand pollinated has taken. She told me I needed to come over and hand pollinate hers. She has quite a few plants and only 2 fruits one of which I hand pollinated while visiting. Her squash have very few fruits and the cantaloupes have 0%success so far.
I do have those tiny bees I was brought up hearing called sweat bees, but I don't trust they will do the job everytime. With this said, I'd pluck off a male, cut the pedals off and mash it in the female flower. I'm 100% this year. Just sayin

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Aya
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Thanks for the advice. If I had more than one pumpkin plant I might wait it out and see what happens, but I only have just the one - so I want to be sure I have the best possible chance of getting fruit. I too have seen the tiny little bees, and I've seen a couple of honeybees, but not very many. We've had a very wet summer so far - which I would imagine cuts down on bee popularity..

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applestar
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Good luck! I think if I had just one plant, I would just hand pollinate every flower too -- unless I'm seeing plenty of bee activity.

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Aya
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Well so far I've got two female flowers growing. One is about 50% bigger than the other. The biggest one bloomed today - and I hope I hand pollinated correctly. (No male flowers were open, so I cut off a flower, opened in and mushed it in the female flower and left it there)
So I suppose we'll see what happens if the other female flower decides to catch up

DoubleDogFarm
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No male flowers were open, so I cut off a flower, opened in and mushed it in the female flower and left it there)
:shock: Will have no mushing on my watch. :P


Eric

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TheWaterbug
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Aya wrote:No male flowers were open, so I cut off a flower, opened in and mushed it in the female flower and left it there
Just be careful not to damage the stigma. A pollen grain needs to grow a pollen tube along/within the stigma to reach an ovule.

If the stigma's all smashed and broken, you may get incomplete pollination and a small or malformed fruit.

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Aya
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There seemed to be 3-4 stamens inside the female flower, and one broke off (I think I might've been too hard on it) but the other three were still intact. Now the flower is all dried up and falling off. The fruit is still there and appears to be growing, despite the taste tests from Calypso. Will it still be okay if it didn't break through the skin? (There's little teeth marks in it, but otherwise its fine so far)



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