Monday, June 15, 2009

In the Garden: Boy Meets Girl

When a boy flower of the squash plant meets a girl squash flower, baby squash are formed. Actually, it's a little more complicated than that.

The male flower (pictured above) is found on the same plant as the female flower. The female flower becomes the fruiting body (thus producing the squash), but she cannot do it alone. Alas, she needs a man in her life, or more specifically, the pollen from a male flower. But the process of pollination requires an agent to complete this arranged marriage, which most often comes in the form of honeybees, but other insects and even people can transfer pollen from the male to the female flower.

If you are having trouble growing squash in your garden in spite of the presence of the bright yellow flowers, there is no need to despair. It might be a simple problem with the pollination process, which you yourself can help facilitate. You can read more about squash and how to help pollination occur here.

This female flower sits above a growing squash. Before the squash appears though, you can distinguish the female flowers from the male flowers by the the swollen body behind the petals of the flower.

Okay, enough with all that scientific mumbo-jumbo; let's move on to the important stuff. These two make a lovely couple, don't you think?

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