Hand Pollination 101

I recently have discovered that I have very few bees, so few so that I have more zucchini dying then growing and being edible. So I decided that I would start to intervine and pollinate them myself, now I know I am playing with fire when it comes to the inter-workings of mother natureal but desperate times call for desperate measures. So here is the steps that I use to hand pollinate my veggies. It is very simple and I have already had success take tonights dinner for example that was zucchini and squash that I pollinated.

Step 1: Find and use trusty gardening scissors
Step 2: Identify male flower and cut it off the plant. Notice no little fruit behind the flower.

Step 3: After cutting the flower off, peel the petal part back or off leaving just the stamen, you should defimitely be able to see all the pollen. Step 4: Now identify the female flower. Notice the baby fruit directly behind the flower. Step 5: Take the stamen of the male flower and gently rub it on the stamen of the female, thus leaving some of the pollen on the female flower, you kind of see the pollen on this female flower but my camera was trying to focus on my ants and not the pollen. I have a lovely ant problem, however they don't seem to be hurting anything and they are just little sugar ants. Not fire ants, thank god!

Step 6: Watch the fruit double in size in the next 24 hours! You will know that it has worked if the flower closes up and doesn't fall off right away!