After a while of doing absolutely nothing, My acorn squash plants are taking off now. They haven't been producing any male flowers so I've been pollinating the females with pollen from my zucchini plants. I won't be able to save any seeds but at least we have squashes forming.
We're not huge winter squash eaters but I do like butternut squash soup. I'll have find a good recipe using acorn squash.
Don't you hate when one day all the female flowers are blooming and the next day the male flowers bloom? looks like you were successful with the cross pollinating effort.
ReplyDeleteI have never cross-pollinated...I may have to as there aren't many insects flying around my garden this year. I told my husband I wanted to keep bees...he's not feelin' it. :)
ReplyDeleteMy zucchini and squash plants aren't off to a great start either...I'm blaming this random weather we've been having here in Ca. My poor plants are confused!
Johanna - I soooo hear you on that one. My watermelons are doing that right now. It's really annoying.
ReplyDeleteMichelle - I would love to keep bees as well. Maybe one day we'll get there!
Great picture. I've never tried acorn squash, but you've motivated me now. Very exciting Thomas!
ReplyDeleteI've never tried acorn squash, what a pretty picture!
ReplyDeleteI find that all winter squash are pretty much interchangeable (except, of course, spaghetti squash which I find too bland to eat anyway).
ReplyDeleteIs this a Mesa Queen acorn squash? We had a really bad year for squash last year, but Mesa Queen Acorn did very well.
Also, did you know that there is a squash bee? Yeah, that's right, there's a bee that only polinates squash. I haven't seen them in my garden yet, but none of my cucurbrits have bloomed. It's too early.
Hi Thomas! You have mentioned several times in the past few weeks hand pollinating your squash plants. Would you kindly elaborate on how you do this? My lemon cucumbers have more flowers than leaves!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Molly