If you enjoyed this video, please “Like” and share it to help extend its reach! Thanks for watching 🙂TIMESTAMPS for convenience: 0:00 How To Pollinate Cucurbits 2:49 Why Your Plants Fail To Pollinate 6:19 How To Hand Pollinate Cucurbits 10:18 Gynoecious Seeds Double Your Harvest 12:29 Parthenocarpic Cucumber Varieties 14:26 Can I Save Seeds? 16:06 Parthenocarpic Squash 18:57 Adventures With Dale
@TheMillenialGardener 🌼🌼🌼🌼🌼I have a quick question: I only see males right now. Is it normal to see only males at the beginning of the season then start seeing females in a few weeks?
Last year I had straight neck yellow squash planted next to zucchini and I had several vegetables on my yellow squash plant that came out half yellow and half green. It was crazy…they were exactly half and half and the shape of the straight neck yellow squash. I didn’t manually pollinate them either. It was obvious once I cut them open that they were half yellow squash and half zucchini due to the texture difference inside of them too.
I have a lemon drops about to pop. I really liked it last year. The rind is edible too. I have some seedless varieties this year. Tropical sunshine,tailgate seedless and sangria, oranglo, sweetglo and moon and stars. Planted them in between my fruit trees. I planted like you did that one years ago on the weed plastic. I’ll never grow melons without it again. Wish I could show you a picture. Been a great year. About to can tomatoes and make some pickles. Thanks for all the great info and cool ideas! Shout out to Dale.
Sweetglo is a good melon. I'm trying some weird hybrid called Melonade. We'll see how they do. Melon vines love sprawling on weed barrier. It's awesome!
Personal circumstance tells me to foster *native solitary bees,* hand fert can be necessary but to be *mostly* avoided due to time ROI. Good to toy with and learn always. I have potentially large native populations. Example: Letting artichoke blooms run wild in backyard, self seeded, mostly un-watered, *little* natives thrive (have bumblebees but not on these blossoms), darting in and out of narrow gaps between thistles that a Euro bee couldn't reach. Have ton more deliberate blooming plants, but learned something from choke experiment, about bees. 😀 Every little bit counts. Dandelions are food for us and bees. 😉
I've gotten 53 cucumbers in 4 days so far, still have massive blooms and tons of bees doing the work for me thankfully. I have so many bees I get nervous picking them because I'm afraid of getting stung. 😮
The only time I’ve ever been stung is when I’ve accidentally grabbed a wasp around a corner. Bumble bees, honey bees, etc are generally gentle and are just doing their thing. Just don’t cup them in your hands. Move slowly so they can keep track of you.
I'm jelly! Still.planting the last of my watermelon plants in Northern California. Have male flowers on one. Focused mainly on tomatoes and peppers early. Watermelon, cutest, and squash went in a little bit later than usual. John McHatton
Right!! My plants are barely growing. The plants are loving that it's finally getting warm, but I'm roasting! Lol Got too used to those nice cool days we've been having!
YES, I use a thin paint brush, it's the same as a makeup brush BUT I noticed that when I used a Q-tip a couple of times last that most of the pollen sticks on the Q-tip so for me using the little paint brush is the Best Way- BAR None! WISHING EVERYONE A AWESOME GROWING SEASON 🌱🍅🫑🥒🌽🍆🫘🍉🧅🍓✌️💜
@@TheMillennialGardenerJUST WANTED TO ALSO SAY THAT YOU ARE MY FAVORITE WITH ALL YOUR VIDEOS THAT'S HELPED ME OUT COUNTLESS TIMES 👏👏👏 SO PLEASE KEEP THES VIDEOS COMING, I REALLY APPRECIATE YOUR TIME AND LOOKIN FORWARD TO THE NEXT ONE! 👏👏👏✌️💜
Can you please do a video on whether you refresh your grow bags each season or whether you start with fresh soil? I see you have a lot of grow bags there.
Partenocarpic varieties are the best. I grow some from seeds gathered last year and they give fruits with no problem. I am after the first harvest this season already.
You answered my question! Almost yanked out a diehard zucchini that has persevered for almost two years in a giant pot! I’ve only eaten the tiny fruit because nothing ever “takes hold” and now I know why!!! Thanks 🙏
I love this channel and I don’t think making a comment at being impressed at how he is able to say the scientific names was going to cause any problems. And I in no way said anything negative. Keep up the great videos Marcus
I am growing yellow patty pan squash for the first time. I started from seed, and at 6 weeks, I transplanted them in fabric grow bags. I got some chain link tension wire cut in 9' pieces. I added 2 wires in a grow bag crossed over each other to make a hoop. I covered each squash plant with a 4'x4' insect cover that has a drawstring at the bottom and a zipper to keep out the vine borer pests. That has worked very well, but since pollinators can't get to the flowers, I have to hand pollinate them. My experience has been that the plants are growing a lot of male flowers and just a few female flowers. Rarely do they open at the same time making it difficult to hand pollinate. I've successfully hand pollinated only 3 squash so far. I'm not going to grow patty pan squash again. I do like the taste of the squash though.
I saw a short a couple days ago where a man said you can keep the male flowers in a ziplock bag in the fridge for a week. Currently have a couple of male flowers in my fridge to see if it helps because I was having the same issue as you.
Dude..like..WTF..! Your explanations of things is why I subscribe. Dang bro like Dang! You tell it so simply it just makes sense for this Gen x er. Thank you 🙏
@@TheMillennialGardener You are a genius. I used some of your info and so far have had the best vegetable garden I have had in 10 years. My wife is surprised at how well the plants are. As a matter of fact, as soon as I commented I showed her on our zucchini plant about the male and female plant and she was shocked. So simple but we never heard it before. Thank you!! Lol. Your still young.
I have no intention of growing any veggies, but this was super helpful information. I'm trying to grow more ornamentals that support the local bee population so that there are more pollinators around. My only real winner seems to be the hibiscus tree I have. All the early spring stuff doesn't work for them because our springs are volatile and can be too cold at times. They don't seem to be as attracted to some of the summer bloomers either that I have. Will keep trying! Glad my blueberries are self-fertile and wind pollinated or I'd have none!
That works for plants where male and female sex organs are enclosed in the same flower, like tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. The vibrations stir up the pollen. For cucurbits, pollen must be transferred from male flower to female flower, so you need a different procedure.
This is so helpful. I have spent the last 2 years planting flowers to attract pollinators before starting my veggie garden. And then this year has been oddly cool and I have very few compared to this time last year. Some of my flowers I had this time last year haven't even opened yet. So this is very useful information 👍🏼
Thank you, I’m trying this today. In the Midwest, we’re behind in our growth because of unusually late frosts and a hail storm just a couple of weeks ago. What plants seemed to be catching up were damaged by hail. I have male and female flowers though. I moved my planted (bright) petunias by the tomatoes and cucumbers in hopes of drawing pollinators their way. I’m also keeping hummingbird feeders fresh, and water options for bees. They still need help so I appreciate this advice!
Coastal SC here. Man, I love your channel. I've been following for years. This is the first time I've heard you blown out - engineer/scientist. What's up?
I am saddened that we are having a hard time to get our 'bees' to pollinate. This is not good! But thank you so much to help us to get our crops regardless. Thank you!
Thank you for making all of this easy to understand, and you still packed in a ton of info! It's like you are the interpreter between all the technical science, and the simple layman. I learn so much!
I'm glad the video was helpful. I'm an engineer, so I explain things for a living. I try to walk that line between "simple" and "complicated" and frontload the videos with simple concepts and save the more advanced stuff for the nerds at the end 😁
Great information! Do you leave the shade cloth up year round? We live on the east coast of central Florida. While our grow season begins in Jan/Feb, by late May/early June its too hot to really continue with open gardens. Are you using the shade cloth for all of your plants?
Si am in outh fl , to hot and humid now for CC I believe, did my last harvest of tomatoes last week. Love your shade cloth set up, where did you get that size and how long does it need to be replaced?
I grow lemon cucumbers each year in an enclosed cage. I hand pollinate each day and actually enjoy it. * Please do a video on lemon drop melons. I've tried for 3 years to grow them on a trellis within the enclosure. I get good pollination rates and fruit. The problem is determining when to pick them. It's painfully difficult. If you wait too long, it splits. If you pick too early, it's bitter. They are super delicious if you can get it right.
Great video! What time of year do you start your garden over as far as pulling your plants up after they decline and start mostly a new second crop for the remaining of the year? I'd love an answer on this and I think a video on this subject would benefit us all since I can't find anything on the subject so far. Thank you for all the great videos !
It depends. It's based on rainfall. For whatever reason, we're having a dry June. Maybe it's because we're in a neutral pattern right now in between El Nino and La Nina. The lack of rainfall and lack of horrible humidity is keeping my plants growing better than usual. Normally, I am starting new seeds for transplants now, but I haven't yet. I may not for another week or two.
Got a question about your dragonfly video, you mentioned how buggy it is in NC. Do you have any experience with citronella bushes to help keep the mosquitoes away?
It is one large shade tarp. See Monday’s video for the full rundown: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SbWcCxV7OOE.htmlsi=cQwZXwSknCs03VfQ
The inner nerd in me is geeking out right now 😂. I'm a tutor and was just going over asexual vs sexual reproduction and in particular parthenogenesis 😂😂 love your channel btw 🤙🤙
@TheMillennialGardener I legit sent her the video and was like "this is exactly what we were talking about " and she wrote back that she was so excited that she actually understood everything you said and was even able to explain it to her mom 🤣
I grew a variety of zucchini called Partenon last summer , two in complete isolation under a jacket of tulle. The yield was very good, although towards the middle of the summer, they were cramped and started to drop fruit and get powdery mildew. The other two Partenon plants that I had only covered during borer season grew into plants about 6 feet in diameter and 3 feet tall with huge leaves, and produced tremendous yields of fruit. Even the fruits that grew large (12 inches or so) because I missed them, were tender and delicious, with no seed development. In late August, they also succumbed t powdery mildew, but I had so much zucchini in my freezer, I didn't make any attempts to save them. I just pulled them up and trashed them.
The problem I see most of the time is just like real life. When the female flower is ready, the males are all shriveled up. When the males are ready, the female is no where to be found or she’s all closed up already. Such is life even in the garden😂
TIP I use a male Zuchinni flower to pollinate all over my garden. Or Patty Pan Squash. They are large and strong flowers and easy to use. I don't normally save seeds so I don't worry about crossing.
Wow! I just love your channel and all the tips you share. You’ve certainly helped me out several times and I’m an experienced home gardener. Thanks so much. Keep ‘em coming! 🍓🍑🍋🥦🫐🍆🍇
what's the minimum, &/or recommended, size grow bag you would suggest for growing the little lemon drop watermelons? What size grow bag for a 'regular' watermelon--the typical 8-10 pound type? Thanks in advance.
🍉🍈🍆🥒🍉🍈🍆🥒🍉🍈🍆🥒 Thanks for this. I did plan to hand pollinate my decorative gourd garden in Vineland NJ this year because I was really disappointed with my harvest last year.
Having a few beehives works too. Couple hundred thousand little farm workers. If you aren't comfortable managing hives setting up housing for native carpenter bees for your area works too.
Can I ask a question about a different topic than in this video? I can’t find the answer anywhere I look.. if kale is a biannual, how does it withstand the heat of our South summers? Last year, my first gardening year, I ripped it out in June, and this year I am trying to keep it growing (heard you said that you plant it and it stays in your garden for two years..). BUT, it’s turning yellow so fast, I just keep taking the bottom leaves off and throwing away.. the dinosaur kale is doing better but the red Russian is turning yellow.. My question is, should I just keep it, and it will revive in the fall? If any leaves will be left by then 😅🙈
I have a question. Is there a way to check if the plant is successfully pollinated? I’ve been growing yellow squash and transferred pollen from the male to female flowers a few days ago. The flowers at the end of the females have somewhat shriveled up and I’m wondering if I was successful or not.
If no pollination, the fruit will shrink and fall off. If the fruit stays, it will swell and grow because it has been successfully pollinated. There is such a thing as partial pollination. You may get a small fruit and not all seeds in that fruit will mature. I save seeds, so I need to make sure I get complete pollination. Manually.
You will just have to wait and see. You won’t know til they start growing. The thing about pollinating is it also has environmental requirements, so even if you hand pollinated, if it was insanely hot or way too damp/chilly/wet, they could cause a failure. Nothing in nature is ever 100%. All you can do is try your best. If you stay on top of your plants, you will do well in the long run.
Generally, nothing. Different species typically won't pollinate one-another. There are rare glitches that get you animals like Mules and Ligers, but in the case of cucumbers, squash and melons, nothing will happen.
Which pickling cucumber are you seeing come in early and strong? I would prefer to process pickles in May if possible (gulf coast) instead of June because the pickle worms are a nightmare.
