Hello garden gals and guys! I’ve got a great little garden nugget for you today and it’s all about cucumbers. Cukes are one of my favorite things to grow, mostly because I love to see the tendrils they put out that grab onto anything in their path to pull themselves up on.
When I was in my garden this weekend, I saw a lot of the flowers falling off my cucumbers. My husband will tell you that I panic first and then try to figure out what is going on. This is what I saw:
Flowers on the ground.
I panicked.
Then I did some googling.
It turns out that the first ten or so flowers on a cucumber are the male flowers and it is common for these to fall off when the plant is setting flowers. So, thankfully, there is no cause for concern.
But I will be watching them closely because I also learned that if both your female and your male flowers begin to fall off the vine, that means the female flowers aren’t getting pollinated.
Our little bee friends usually take care of this. But if for some reason they aren’t, you can do it yourself.
How?
I’ll explain, but there’s some adult content coming.
Clear the kids out of the room.
You take a q-tip and dip it into the male flower and rub gently around. Now you have pollen on the q-tip. Take that and rub it around gently in the female flower. Boom. Pollinated.
Hopefully you’ve got bees doing this job for you. I did see some baby cucumbers on my plant which means the bees have deemed my plants worthy.
Oh, and if you’re wondering (like I did) how to tell the difference between a male and a female flower, that’s easy. The female flowers will have little baby cucumbers behind them. Think of the cuke as the baby growing in the momma’s belly.
So, that’s it for now! Short and sweet.
Until next time….
Happy farming!!
Wow, very interesting. I just learned something. Makes me think of that song from the 50s "let me tell you 'bout the birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees, and a thing called love 🙂
🙂 You're so funny!!!
Here's a question for you my cucumber is 6 inches long the flower fell off and in a week's time it still has not grown anymore not sure what to do