Telegraph Cucumber plants

[missgiggles75]

I am growing cucumbers for the first time, some one told me a while ago that the man flower needs to pollenate the lady flower, is this true?

And if so how do I know the difference between the two and how do I pollenate a plant?

I currently have plants around 30 cm high, in my greenhouse, in 20cm pots

Thanks

Tracey

[Roger]

Hi there! Yes, it's true. You can do it by hand, by using a Q-tip cotton type applicator and carefully swabbing inside the male flowers to gather pollen, then swab inside the female flowers, with the hope of depositing the pollen there. Its best to do this in middle to late morning, before the heat of the day, or at least so for cucumbers. Swab each flower on each vine three or four times each, cycling from flower to flower on the vine so as to visit each and every flower, every day or so until you see evidence of fruit set.

Or you can take the easy and vastly simpler way out, and move the cucumbers outside from about 9AM until Noon, and let the honeybees and bumblebees and butterflies do this for you If possible, leave them outside for several days time, to ensure pollination.

[ahuong]

You can identify the female and male flowers pretty easily. The female flowers will have a miniature cucumber looking pod connected right below the blossom. This is equivalent to the plant's ovary.

The male flowers don't have one of these.

As for pollination, I personally have had lots of successful fruit pop up without needing to do any pollination by hand. Most of the time, bees will fly around and do the pollination for me. Also, a lot of ants like to crawl around the plants in my garden, so I suppose that they help spread the pollen around as well by picking it up on their legs and wandering from flower to flower.

Hope this helps.