Gardening

Jacqueline Lindt said:
Thanks ....interesting! ☺️
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Zucchini and most squashes are monoecious, meaning they have both male and female flowers on the same plant. With zucchini, the males usually open first and the females a few days later. As was posted above, the females have small versions of the mature fruit at the base. To ensure pollination, use a small brush or cotton swab, or even the male pistil itself, and stoke first the male part, then the female part at the center of the blossom. Try to use several plants if you have more than one.

Sorry. It sounds a bit dirty to talk like that.
 
Don Alaska said:
Zucchini and most squashes are monoecious, meaning they have both male and female flowers on the same plant. With zucchini, the males usually open first and the females a few days later. As was posted above, the females have small versions of the mature fruit at the base. To ensure pollination, use a small brush or cotton swab, or even the male pistil itself, and stoke first the male part, then the female part at the center of the blossom. Try to use several plants if you have more than one.

Sorry. It sounds a bit dirty to talk like that.
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It's ok. We only get sweaty when you talk about male and female plumbing parts.
 
I think everything is up-potted now, and I started the outside cucumber varieties and the summer squash today. Winter squash and pumpkins will likely be started tomorrow. We may sort hoses and check to see how much if any of the irrigation stuff is thawed now. I think the big greenhouse is still under a foot or more (the floor) of water. Since many of the puddles are now draining, the greenhouse should be drying soon too. I was putting neem meal in my tomato and pepper pots today. I don't know if anyone else has tried that, but neem meal ( the seeds after neem oil is extracted) seems to be a great insect repellent that breaks down into a 6-1-4 fertilizer (Don't hold me to the numbers), so if you have bugs you can't easily control, you can put some on the soil--I don't recommend letting it touch the stem,--or you can even dust the plants with it. I find it keeps aphids and such away pretty well. I wondered if it would repel the ants that @Beth Gallagher was dealing with.
 
Don Alaska said:
Zucchini and most squashes are monoecious, meaning they have both male and female flowers on the same plant. With zucchini, the males usually open first and the females a few days later. As was posted above, the females have small versions of the mature fruit at the base. To ensure pollination, use a small brush or cotton swab, or even the male pistil itself, and stoke first the male part, then the female part at the center of the blossom. Try to use several plants if you have more than one.

Sorry. It sounds a bit dirty to talk like that.
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My hubby checks the veggies in the mornings in summer …..and in very hot weather he gives extra water if needed ,he notices if pumpkins have female flowers but no males ,if so ….he gos around to the other side of the house and if there’s males there he picks them and fertilises the females with those ….
It always seems to work….if not …the young pumpkins soon turn yellow and fall off

The female flowers ….on the Kent or what some call Jap pumpkins I picked yesterday , were huge this year

All our veggies / fruit trees have drippers we can operate with our phones , even if we are away , but in extreme weather the garden needs extra water 💦 due to the horrible limestone we have
We both put hour and hours of work into the garden areas we established ,which is not a large area

Last week we picked about 30 kg of apples from our pink lady ballerina tree , 3 weeks before that we picked close to 40 kg off the Golden delicious tree , which we dried about 10 kg ,……. peeled / cored / cut others into 1/4 dipped in citric acid / and sorta vacuumed packed ( mainly just sealed the pack ) and put them in the freezer for winter Apple pies that was about 15 kg

I’ve still got in excess of 10 kg in the fridge …given so many away buy taking to a dance and putting on the stage for people help them selves
( they all get taken )
2 weeks ago I put a box of the golden delicious out the front at a school bus stop / asked people if they wanted some …nah …they said they only eat apples from the shop :cry::cry::cry:……so I ended up putting them in the green bin

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@Don Alaska
 
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Don Alaska said:
Fertilizing with a different type of squash or pumpkin works fine if they are the same species, usually C. pepo here, and you don't intend to save the seeds. If you save the seeds, you will get Kate Ellery Surprise squash the next year:rolleyes: Nice harvest of small pumpkins. What kind are they?
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Kent pumpkins …or some shops call them Jap , I didn’t plant them they came up from buried scraps

Jap/ Kent wasn’t known in Australia till about 20 years go ..it was butternut / Queensland blue ( you needed a axe to cut ) and jardahdale

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Popular pumpkin varieties in Australia include the versatile, sweet-fleshed Butternut, the nutty-flavoured Jap/Kent, and the reliable, long-storing heirloom Queensland Blue. Other common types include the WA-bred Jarrahdale, compact Golden Nugget, and specialized heirlooms like Kumi Kumi, ideal for roasting, soups, and baking.
 
Beth Gallagher said:
Kate, my mother used to store butternut squash in a cool dry place and they would keep literally for months. So you should be able to keep those and use them for soup or oven roasting when your weather gets cold.
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Yes I’ve been growing pumpkins forever , @Beth Gallagher and they keep,well
Lots of vineyards up the Riverland where lived prior to meeting hubs used to grow pumpkins between the vines ,and they would store them outside , many vineyard owners would store them outside on the old structures that were once used for drying grapes , but if they got a very heavy frost it would freeze them
 
Meant to add …the butternuts and the Jap/ Kent pumpkins do cross ..last year same thing happened Japs came up where I’d buried veg scraps ,and I got green speckled skin like japs …but the shape of the butternut pumpkins

I’ve even seen them in shops the same green skin / butternut shape

I usually removed all the seeds of pumpkin before burying the scraps but a few seemed to hide in the scraps

We only get our bins emptied once every two weeks ….and scraps get buried , they go in the green waste bin and get slimy / attract insects
in the heat of summer
 
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`I think I know the Jap/Kents as Kabocha, butternut carries the same name here, Gold Nugget, Queensland blue, and Jarrahdale also carry the same name, but we call them all winter squash rather than pumpkins except for the Jarrhadale. Interesting stuff. I am not sure why some are called pumpkins here and some are called winter squash. Both are generally either C. pepo or C. maxima except neck pumpkins that are something different completely, C. moschata and they might do very well where you live. Do you have vine borers there @Kate Ellery ?
 
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