Sex in the Garden

Checking out the garden today, everything is beginning to fruit. The tomatoes are 2" and smaller, so atleast a month away from being globes of red wonder. The peppers are blooming, but one has been attacked by some kind of stem chewing nasty that has probably killed it. My one summer squash is taking over it's level of the garden...and I've been picking pear squash off it. It lucks holds, however, a vine borer will kill it just after the holiday on Tuesday.

The summer squash, and all the other plants are members of the Cucurbitaceae family: cucumbers, melons and winter squash. These are starting to put out both male and female blossoms and I hope beginning to set fruit.

What's that? You didn't know that plants have a specific sex? let me show you:

The blossom at the top of this post is a male blossom. Note the large flower, the upright position and the smooth stem.

Now these are two spots are going to be come female blossoms. Their stems are quite a bit shorter, their blossoms a bit smaller, and see? they already look like they are bearing fruit. That fruit is the ovary of the female blossom.

The male blossoms will appear first on these plants, to insure thier presence when the girls are ready. Then the females show up in greater numbers than the males waiting for pollination to make them vegetables. If for some reason the blossoms are not pollinated, you will find a small brown dried up fruit that soons drops off the vine.

Whatcha Doing Today? Chores. Shopping, walking the dogs and working in the garden. Plus I need to write about 5 blogposts.

Reading? OK, I've decided. I don't really care for Poisonwood Bible and I'm going to quit reading it. I love Prodigal Summer.. but PB, not so much.

Steps: Friday: 8412 steps.

What's For Dinner, Deb? Potato pancakes, pastrami and coleslaw.