Getting a buzz on…
…or make like a bee.
Today, I got a chance to help out the many busy pollinators out there in the garden. We planted watermelon vines both in the front garden where we planted them with success last year and in the back since I had an extra seedling.
This morning I noticed an open female flower on the back vine but not a male flower in sight! What’s up with that? All dolled up for the Ball but no date!
You see, in order for the female flower to mature into a fruit it needs to be pollinated by a male flower. That’s where the birds and the bees and other pollinators come in – they fly around, gather pollen grains from male flowers and buzz into a female flower looking for more pollen and as a result fertilize the fruiting body of the female flower.
Interestingly, each seed that you find in say, a watermelon, is represented in the flower’s ovary (yes, flowers have them parts too.) Each ovule needs a pollen grain to mature into a seed. So that’s a good amount of pollen grains since there are many seeds in most veggies and fruit. If only a few seeds are fertilized then the fruit will likely shrivel up and die (sniffle) or if all the seeds aren’t fertilized you may end up with a misshapen veggie or fruit.
Most flowers then, need multiple visits from our pollinator friends. One gauge of how large and diverse your pollinator population could be your rate of unfertilized female flowers and oddly shaped veggies.
As hard as all those busy pollinators are buzzing from flower to flower doing their thing – I had doubts that they would make a special trip out front to find the appropriate pollen for our potential watermelon.
So I got the buzz on and beelined to the front in hopes of finding a nice date for our lonely female flower.
I found a nice specimen bursting with pollen and carefully plucked it off the vine.
After I made the trip to the back, I carefully peeled away the petals to expose the stamen.
Then I gently brushed the stamen to the center of the female flower where the ovules are located – making sure I got as much pollen in there as I could.
That’s it! Hopefully she got fertilized and we will be enjoying a nice Sugar Baby watermelon in a month or so.
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