Up at 6am to get to the freshly opened flowers before the bees . I,m quite sure that the bees are still in bed , it has been raining all night and still very overcast now .
Pollination -the act of transferring pollen grains from a male anther of a flower to a female flower stigma . This I did with a cotton bud stick . However...as you can see the flowers and the pollen are very wet from the rain ....so I,m not sure this is going to work .
Does it work if the pollen is wet ? I dont know ?
I went out into the veg garden later on , around 10am and repeated this . I got more pollen this time round .
I also untied the twine on the other female flower and pollinated that one too .
By the way , you can do this with your Courgettes and cucumbers , Pumpkins and other types of Squashes too . I,m just trying to keep the seeds from this Gete -okosomin squash fruits pure and not cross with any other of those above .
I cant believe how fast this plant is growing now ..I usually have my Butternut Squashes growing on a large piece of pig-wire leaning on two large Hazel supporting sticks/rods , but last year I grew the Giant Pink Banana Squash and It was far better trailing about on the ground ,with the fruit resting on a stool and eventually getting to a very large size . This Gete -okosomin Squash is a similar size beast . I planted it on the south side of the , I,m sure now familiar to you " Pumpkin bed " and it has turned to grow firstly to the rising sun in the East and now heading to the North side . It is indeed circling the central watering basket ! I am pushing in sticks to keep it in place and steady in the wind and rain that we're having at the moment .
The Cherokee Purple Tomato plants ..two of them have become enormous ! Far bigger than the ones in my greenhouse and they are scrabbling , quite rampantly and greedily towards and even into the watering basket . They are covered with flowers .
Well , it has been raining for most of the day . We visited Steve at Lower Kenneggy Garden Nurseries and Trevena Cross Nurseries , bought more plants , walked the dog in the rain , hot chocolate in Tescos , came home and got the fire going in the wood burning stove . It's still only July and it feels like Autumn !
The rain is thundering down again as I write this .... I think it is back to sunshine and showers again tomorrow here in Mullion .
I,m praying for some sunshine now , to make the flowers open , pollen dry and the bees sing again ..although ....just not near this Squash plant !
Fingers crossed ! On a more happier note , I received my Romneya coulteri"Califoronian Tree Poppy seeds from Nigel Dodds of Kykeon Plants....so happy ! He even slipped in a free packet of mixed Poppy Seeds ! Nigel sells lots of different Poppy seeds --- http://kykeonplants.mysimplestore.com/
Brilliant ! Made my day ! Thanks Nigel ! :)
Sorry to those of you who are on holiday here at the moment , it is not very good weather for building sandcastles on the beach is it ? !!
Everybody join in and sing with Mummabear .......
" The sun 'll come out ..tomorrow .
Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow.
There'll be sun ! " :)
