Busy Bees

 

It's so awesome to watch the bees working in the garden. Many plants that produce fruit rely on bees for pollination. So we want them around! Many pesticides kill bees, and this is just one of the many reasons we choose to not use any pesticides in our garden. Or anywhere on our property, for that matter. Here, I got a few good shots showing some bees in action.  

In the above pictures, you can see the pollen sacs on it's legs filling up with pollen, as it collects from corn anthers.

Controlling Garden Pests: Aphids

 

Aphids are a very common garden pest. We get them a lot on our sunflowers, and it's usually easy to spot an infestation because there will also be a lot of ants.

Ants are attracted to aphids because of a sticky, sweet substance they produce when feeding, called honeydew. Honeydew isn't the sole food source for ants, but when an aphid colony is in the area, the ants can harvest this nutrient-rich substance continually with less labor than what is required to constantly locate new food sources. Because of this, ants protect aphid colonies, warding off pests and parasites, as well as helping the immobile aphids multiply by spreading them out on infested sunflowers. Here is a good article explaining the relationship between ants and aphids.

Anyway, it's important to get rid of these pests before they get too out of control. A few aphids may not cause noticeable damage, but as populations build, leaves may yellow, twist, discolor or drop off after drying up.

We have found the easiest, most effective way to control the aphid population is by spraying they leaves with a diluted dish soap mixture. We use the blue original Dawn dish soap for this, as it seems to be the safest and is great for lots of different uses around the house.

• Simply fill a spray bottle with water, add a small squirt of the dish soap, and give it a good shake. We don't measure, but I'm guessing it's probably about 1 teaspoon of soap in the 32 oz. spray bottle we use. 

• Spray the affected plant's leaves on both sides with the soapy mixture. Be sure to coat the underside of the leaves with the mixture, as this is where you'll find the highest concentration of aphids.

• Spray the soapy mixture directly onto any aphids you notice falling from the leaves.

• I would suggest rinsing away the soapy residue after one to two hours. Allowing the soap to remain on the leaves for longer than a few hours can cause damage and burning. Use a garden hose or spray bottle filled with plain water to remove the residue. 

Here's a leaf that was sprayed with the soapy mixture and not rinsed after.
The aphids are dead and the ants are gone, but the leaf is not looking too hot.

• Reapply the mixture every few days, or as necessary, to keep the aphid infestation under control.

Hand Pollinating Squash and Pumpkin Flowers

Most of the time, when you plant squash, you have bees that come around to pollinate your garden, including the squash blossoms. However, if you live in an area where the bee population is small, you might have difficulties having squash pollinated unless you do it yourself. To ensure maximum production of your plants, you can hand pollinate your pumpkins and squash by following a few simple steps.

Female flower with small fruit (ovary).

Male flowers lack an ovary.

Hand pollination of squash blossoms requires no special skills or tools. All you have to do is be able to identify male and female flowers. On squash, this is very easy to do. Female flowers will always have a tiny fruit under the flower. Male flowers grow on a long narrow stem. Pictured above are female and male flowers. You can see the presence of a fruit (ovary) at the base of the flower on the female, and the lack of fruit on the flower of the male.

   You can also tell the two apart by looking at the reproductive organs found in the center of the flower. The female flowers contain the stigma. It has several bumpy structures that cluster around a central opening. This  is where you will be applying the pollen when you perform hand pollinating.

Inside the male flower is a slender filament known as the anther. If you touch the anther, you will see that pollen rubs off the anther. This is what makes it so easy to do hand pollinating.

 Cut the male flower off where the flower stem meets the main stem of the plant. Next, gently remove all of the petals from the flower. Once the petals are gone you are left with a stem and exposed anther.

Now find a female flower and use your stem and anther to "paint" the stigma in the center of the female flower. Gently rub the anther over the stigma a few times, as if brushing paint on it. This will be enough to pollinate the stigma, which will then produce squash. Then go on to the next female flower. Each anther can be used to pollinate several female blossoms. However, since there's no shortage of male flowers, we just use one male per female, and leave the anther sitting inside each pollinated flower. This makes it easy to identify which flowers have already been pollinated.

 

 The pollen is being transferred to the stigma of the female flower completing the process of pollination. In nature, bees and other insects perform this important procedure.

After pollination, fertilization occurs and the fruit develops. Fertilization is necessary for fruit formation. If fertilization does not occur, the ovary will wither away. If fertilization is successful, the ovary will begin to swell and a fruit develops.

 

 When you pollinate by hand, realize that you are not wasting flowers since picking the male flowers simply removes those that will never produce a fruit anyway. Only the female flowers can bear fruit, while the males are used for pollination.

After pollination, you can sit back, watch your squash grow and harvest them as they are ready toward the end of summer.