Wanted: Females

One of the first things we did when we move here was to try to grow our own vegetables. It was a hard row to hoe. The soil here is terrible, mostly heavy clay and rocks. So we spent a lot of time and effort trying to build it up by hauling in manure, sand, and compost and making raised beds.

I can remember one summer when we had worked so hard putting in an asparagus bed, and no sooner did we get it planted than a torrential rain caused the wet weather creek to leap its banks and everything was washed way.

Unfortunately for the garden, my husband never met a tree he didn’t love, and when one would sprout up in the wonderful soil I had worked so hard to prepare, he wouldn’t let me pull it up. So the cleared areas where I was trying to plant vegetables soon became very shaded and filled with tree roots, We gave up trying to grow in the ground.

We bought whiskey barrel halves and planted in them for a while, but that project came to an end when the crew hired by the electric company came and cleared the right of  way under the lines, which is where we had the whiskey barrels, and they bulldozed them all to smithereens.

The last time I attempted to grow squash, which was probably 15 years ago, the plants were invaded by these awful beetles, and then the few squash that started to develop rotted when they were about 2 inches long.

Now we have a few vegetables planted in 5-gallon pails. Jalapeno and bell peppers, tomatoes, and this year, we thought we would try again with squash.

We now have several really healthy looking plants in 5-gallon pails on our deck. 

Unfortunately, only 1 squash has developed. 

Richard did some searching and thought perhaps it was because we didn’t have enough insects around to pollinate the flowers. So he found a YouTube video on how to pollinate by hand.

When he went out to try it, he discovered that all of the flowers are male blossoms. There aren’t any female blossoms to pollinate with. Some flowers have both male and female parts, but not squash. We hope that some female blossoms will eventually appear.

Guess it takes two to tango, even for squash.