Helping Mother Nature with Pollination

One of the biggest frustrations when planting a garden that you have worked and cared for is when you have plants that don't produce.  I have seen this happen firsthand with squash and cucumbers especially.  One thing you can do to help mother nature along is to hand pollinate your plants!
Squash and cucumbers have male and female flowers, and generally the male flowers seem to appear first. 

                                                  Here is a male Cucumber flower:

And a Male squash flower.  You can see the anther full of pollen in the middle:

The Female flowers look like they have a baby fruit behind it, this is the ovary full of eggs waiting to be fertilized.

                                           Female cucumber:

 

Female Zucchini Squash:

To pollinate squash plants, since they have a bigger flower, you can simply take off the male flower, strip the petals to expose the Anther , and touch it to the female flower's Stigma like this:

  

With smaller flowers like the cucumber, you can use a cotton swab.   Just touch the cotton swab to the male's anther like this:

 

 and then touch it to a female flower's stigma like this:

 

Congratulations!  You have just pollinated your plants!  This can be especially helpful in areas where either weather or a lack of pollinators like bees affect pollination.   I hope these little tips help your gardens grow! 

Meredith