Male vs Female Flowers and Hand Pollinating

Before I took an interest in plants and growing my own fruits and veggies, I had no real idea how they came to me.  Don't get me wrong... I knew the basics of needing bees and the plants needed to be pollinated.  But if you told me there were male and female flowers, I'd have looked at you with quite the blank face.   The more research I did, I quickly came to realize that some kinds of plants would produce separate male and female flowers.  And with that I discovered that it might be hard for me to get any kind of harvest if I didn't have bees....  UNLESS....  I had pollinated myself!  Whoa!

Before you can hand pollinate, however, you need to know how to tell which flowers are which.  In MY garden, the plants that will produce males and females are my squash, zucchinis, and my melons.

Once your plant starts putting out flowers, you'll need to look at the underside, or the base of the flower.  If it is swollen with a bulb attached, that is your female.  If there is just a straight, skinny stem leading up to the flower then that is your male.

Here are photos of my flowering melons and zucchinis.

Zucchini

Sugar Baby Melon

Notice how both of the females have a swollen bit under the flower.  That will be the fruit of the plant so long as it is properly pollinated!  Now, what if you don't have many bees?  You can easily and successfully pollinate your plant yourself.   I take a soft old nail brush (something light and fluffy, not too stiff) and swirl it around the open male flower to pick up the pollen.  Then, find an open female flower and swirl that same brush around inside it.  This will place the pollen properly so it can now grow the fruit at its base.  If you have enough bees and you see them going from each plant you don't have to worry so much about doing this.  I have stopped hand pollinating because I have a lot of bees that have found my yard and are doing the work for me.

*Random Advise:  Don't panic if at first you see nothing but a bunch of male flowers.  Typically, the plants will send out a bunch of male flowers first and then a few weeks later you'll start seeing some females pop into the mix as well. :-)