At the beginning of August we talked about hand pollinating pumpkins (you can read about it HERE). You might remember I had one little problem when I went out to make baby pumpkins. I only had male flowers and didn’t see any female flowers. After a few days of checking in with the pumpkins I still don’t see any female flowers. But when I went to the garden today I saw something a little different…
You can see the bigger flower, which is likely to be a male flower again, but lower on the stem is another bud. This one looks different and I haven’t seem them like this before. It’s so much smaller, closer to the stem but coming out of the same joint. It’s also a little plumper than what the male flowers look like this small. I could be wrong but I’m really, really hoping this is a female flower. REALLY hoping…
Other things I noticed about the pumpkin vines. After the pumpkin vines began to grow they started running behind the tomatoes. I asked the Plantswoman and she said they were probably getting too much sun so they found a shadier spot. Once the trees fully leafed out above the pumpkins providing more shade the vines started to find their way back to their intended spot. I’m actually glad they retreated behind the tomatoes because their vines are ginormous! It will be difficult to find the rest of the flowers and spy out the fruit since the tomatoes are heavy with fruit but we will make it work.
So, I’m keeping my fingers crossed these pumpkin vines will produce an actual pumpkin. I’ll keep you posted!
