Learning About Pollination with Vegetables

There are some days I stop and realize what Amanda and I share on the phone may not be a typical conversation between two mom friends.  It’s all good I promise but it’s just interests me where our topics lead some days.   This morning’s Topic was: Male and Female Zucchini Flowers

This past week I was out in my garden after dropping my oldest off at school and noticed that my zucchini had blossomed!  I was so excited!  Then I quickly remembered that year after year I have issues with my squash not growing.  I keep trying to grow a garden with my kids and then reality sets in and things just don’t grow.

 Can you Tell from the images which is which?

That’s when I picked up the phone to have an interesting chat with Amanda…. oh to be in on this conversation, well actually I guess you will be because here’s what she shared with me.

There are female and male flowers with squash.  Did you know that?  I truthfully never thought about it before until she pointed it out for me. Once we started talking about it I did recall a few science classes in my youth but I guessed I had simple filed it away from lack of use.  FYI…The male flower has a long slender stem with pollen and the female flower has a short stem along with a miniature squash at the base of the flower.

The male flower has pollen!

Become a Pollinator!  

Here I was out with my youngest daughter teaching her about flowers and pollen and noticing the differences in the flowers. We took at with our paintbrushes or Qtips and touched the male pollen and then touched the female blossom, stigma.  A little basic reproductive science at the plant level with kids.

So there you have it, there are  male and female blossoms on zucchini plants and how to help your vegetables grow!  I thought perhaps you might want to know too, just in case you don’t have a friend like Amanda to call and ask your gardening questions too.

Guess what we discovered a few days later?  

A tiny zucchini that’s actually growing.  If it had not been pollinated then it stops growing and just turns yellow then to mush.  Hopefully we can attract more pollinators to our garden this year through planting the right flowers but until then we will be “Assistant Pollinators” .   Here’s more information below about Pollination and how to attract Pollinators to your garden.