{"id":375,"date":"2009-07-14T16:50:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-14T16:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/07\/matchmaker-matchmaker-make-me-a-match.html"},"modified":"2009-07-14T16:50:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-14T16:50:00","slug":"matchmaker-matchmaker-make-me-a-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/07\/matchmaker-matchmaker-make-me-a-match.html","title":{"rendered":"Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Make Me a Match…."},"content":{"rendered":"

I have this incredibly HUGE pumpkin plant taking over my backyard…<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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From 2009 07 14 Pumpkin Pollination<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

And that’s just the part of the one plant that’s come through the fence and is actually bleeding into the front yard!<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve grown pumpkins in the past and the best I traditionally do is 1…at most 2…pumpkins! This time around, I’m going to try my hand at (drumroll please!) hand-pollination<\/a>!<\/p>\n

I’d read that those enormous pumpkins you see winning blue ribbons at county fairs are typically hand-pollinated. And those who are super-serious will even use plastic bags to ensure the male and female flowers keep as much of their pollen on hand as possible!<\/p>\n

How does this work? Well, for those who didn’t realize, plants in the squash family — to include cucumbers and pumpkins — have both “male” and “female” flowers on the same plant. Male flowers are typically bigger and are on a longer stem, while female flowers will have a bulbous piece just behind the flower…which is what eventually becomes the squash itself when pollinated. On a pumpkin, the first you’d see male flowers — LOTS of male flowers — and then after several weeks (at least 4 weeks in my case), you will see female flowers appear. I’ve had less than 6 so far.<\/p>\n

Here’s a male flower. Note the thinner stem and the stamen in the center:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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From 2009 07 14 Pumpkin Pollination<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

And the female flower. The bulb behind the flower and the multiple “stigma”…with an opening in the center for? You guessed it — the male flower’s pollen!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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From 2009 07 14 Pumpkin Pollination<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

So here’s the deal. You have to do this early enough in the morning that the flowers are all still open. Most pumpkin flowers will shrivel up by mid-day, especially on warm days. You pick a male flower off its stem, and pluck off the petals, exposing its “manliness”:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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From 2009 07 14 Pumpkin Pollination<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Then you rub the male and female innards together…this is rated NC-17, sorry!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
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Now…some folks who have tried that have reported that you’ll see evidence of success in as few as 12 hours — the bulb will begin growing. In an unsuccessful pollination, the flower would fall off and the bulb will turn yellow and shrivel off the flower.<\/p>\n

I’ll check tomorrow morning for evidence of success\/failure of today’s pollination. There should be another flower ready to attempt tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have this incredibly HUGE pumpkin plant taking over my backyard… From 2009 07 14 Pumpkin Pollination And that’s just the part of the one plant that’s come through the fence and is actually bleeding into the front yard! Anyway, I’ve grown pumpkins in the past and the best I traditionally do is 1…at most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[],"tags":[620,84,85],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-63","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":550,"url":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/04\/operation-pumpkin-pollination-2011.html","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":0},"title":"Operation PUMPKIN POLLINATION 2011","date":"26 April 11","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2009 I had tried hand-pollinating pumpkins for the first time. \u00a0(If you click the link, make sure to start at the bottom and work your way up, the posts are appearing in reverse chronological order). \u00a0After seeing award-winning pumpkins at the NC and NE State Fairs, I wanted to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"gardening\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh3.googleusercontent.com\/_yz59FVsseJY\/TbbC0HSE2-I\/AAAAAAABVCc\/LRa4zVqAW98\/s640\/IMG_4563.JPG?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":376,"url":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/07\/and-we-have-pumpkinage.html","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":1},"title":"…And We Have PUMPKINAGE!","date":"17 July 09","format":false,"excerpt":"I consider this a success:Before:From 2009 07 14 Pumpkin PollinationAfter:From 2009 07 14 Pumpkin PollinationIf the pollination hadn't \"taken\", the bulb behind the flower would have yellowed and fallen off the vine by now. This was about 52 hours after the pollination, and the bulb has at least doubled in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"gardening\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":379,"url":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/07\/pumpkin-and-hops-updates.html","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":2},"title":"Pumpkin and Hops Updates","date":"22 July 09","format":false,"excerpt":"First of all, a week after the artificial insemination, here's what we have for a pumpkin so far:This is about 1.5 lbs. and about 10\" circumference. I'm so excited at this!Unfortunately, the next several female flowers haven't been opening up, but they can be really sensitive to amounts of water\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"gardening\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2707,"url":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2013\/10\/pumpkin-carving-time.html","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":3},"title":"Pumpkin Carving Time!","date":"29 October 13","format":false,"excerpt":"Better late than never, right? Timmy and I enjoyed carving our four pumpkins this afternoon. I'm so proud of Timmy, this year he offered to do\u00a0everything but got really nervous about gutting the pumpkins. So I did it for him...because I'm a sucker for that stuff.","rel":"","context":"In \"halloween\"","img":{"alt_text":"DSC_2829","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/DSC_2829-1024x678.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":381,"url":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/07\/pumpkin-2.html","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":4},"title":"Pumpkin #2","date":"26 July 09","format":false,"excerpt":"No other female flowers pending at the moment.","rel":"","context":"In \"gardening\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":553,"url":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/04\/presenting-pumpkin-1.html","url_meta":{"origin":375,"position":5},"title":"Presenting Pumpkin #1!!!","date":"29 April 11","format":false,"excerpt":"And here she is! About 3\" long so far. There's another one on an adjacent vine that's a little smaller, I'll call that one #2!","rel":"","context":"In \"gardening\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}