I have three huge yellow squash plants and two huge zucchini plants all covered with baby fruit. And I do mean covered. I should be covered up with squash coming in right now. Problem is, though they are covered with baby fruit, these fruit will grow no more unless pollinated by bees. I could not figure out for the life of me why this wasn't happening. I went out this morning to investigate. At first I thought is was a lack of bees, but I don't believe now that was the case. Something, probably bunnies (who are getting less cute by the minute) is eating the male flowers. Not cool. There were maybe two male flowers left between the two zucchini plants. So quieting the voice in my head that said "give them some privacy", I took the male flowers off, opened them up, and went around to the rest of the viable fruits (some had already started dying. Nothing to do about that.) and pollinated the fruit (female flowers) by hand. I did the same with the yellow squash. I will more than likely have to continue this for now, each day. I now have a keen knowledge of what a male flower and a female flower looks like with their petals off. I know, I know. Just feels wrong somehow. But it had to be done. Below are the squash flowers. Left is male, right is female. See how it is attached to the fruit?
On the wood chip front, I am off this morning for another load of free wood chips. The ones I have already laid down are doing great! The plants are thriving. In fact, I thought we were done with asparagus for the season, but we have more coming up now that they are protected from heat, and have plenty of moisture. We received a lot of rain these past three days and so the garden is exploding. After the plants dry some, It is back to pulling off tomato suckers, cutting herbs, and other various garden maintenance.
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