Unsecure chicken perches

[patsylabrador]

The pumpkins are taking off and have loads of flowers coming on but I'm not sure, but I think they're male flowers. All of them. There are no flowers with a swollen 'bit'. Am I supposed to do something? I've read about a lack of bees meaning that flowers don't get pollinated and that I should do that with a paint brush. Do you brush pollen off any flower and introduce it to any flower, does that change it to a pumpkin flower?

[Olly]

The first flowers on gourds are usually male - hang on a bit and there should be some female flowers. I'd have thought that bees will do the job for you, but if you want to make doubly sure, you will need to brush pollen from the male to the female pumpkin flowers in order to pollinate. It has to be pumpkin-to-pumpkin, no genetic modification I'm afraid! Male and female on the same plant will do, though.

[sjp]

male flowers or just a flower on a stem, female flowers have the fruit behind them pumkins and squashes tend to produce a lot of male flowers if it cold

The first flowers on gourds are usually male - hang on a bit and there should be some female flowers. I'd have thought that bees will do the job for you, but if you want to make doubly sure, you will need to brush pollen from the male to the female pumpkin flowers in order to pollinate. It has to be pumpkin-to-pumpkin, no genetic modification I'm afraid! Male and female on the same plant will do, though.

 

thats not altogeather true a lot of the squash family will and do naturally cross pollinate it dosn't so in this seasons fruit but it will in the next seasons fruit you can get a really nice selction of fruit out of one pumpkins seed

[Vikki56]

I'd definitely say hang on in there, we've been growing pumpkins for 4-5 years and never had to go near them with a paintbrush yet. Keep the slugs away & hopefully nature will do the rest! Good luck!

 

Vikki

[Lesley]

I'd definitely say hang on in there, we've been growing pumpkins for 4-5 years and never had to go near them with a paintbrush yet. Keep the slugs away & hopefully nature will do the rest! Good luck!

 

Vikki

 

Ditto

[patsylabrador]

Hello. Thank you. I've got three decent sized pumpkins growing now. They are shiny green, one I've put on a bed of gravel to keep off slugs (is that a daft thing to do?) the other two are hanging from a branch that I hadn't noticed was growing through a honeysuckle. I've tried to support them by putting a bench in the bed for them to rest on. It's nice actually because it's near the birdtable and my little colony of precious house sparrows and some starlings that are also having a bad time use it like a park bench. It's my favourite bit of the garden now. About three pumpkins have started off but gone yellow and shrivelled.

[Vikki56]

I think you'd be alright with the gravel around them, but probably not underneath as before their skin toughens they can be quite vulnerable to pointy things. The first year we grew ours we put hay underneath, this is to support the vines & stop them rotting on the ground (keep the air circulating underneath). I've since heard you can do a similar thing with saucers so I guess whichever is easiest to hand

 

Vikki