Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Pumpkin Chronicles Day 46

Pumpkin Patch Central Day 46It’s day 46 in our Pumpkin Chronicles! This is pumpkin patch central and, as you can see, the pumpkin plants are really flourishing. Yesterday I dug up five of the smaller plants and moved them to other areas to give them a little more room. I put three of them further back in the garden here at pumpkin patch central and the other two I put over in pumpkin patch east, which I extended by a couple of feet. If you look closely at the center of the picture, you’ll probably notice a bright orange blossom!

Day 46 Close up of blossomAnd here’s a close-up of the blossom. Isn’t it beautiful! This marks a very exciting time in the life of our pumpkin patch! We noticed just a couple of days ago that most of the pumpkin plants were developing buds. Then yesterday I found a blossom although that one was already done and wilted up by the time I found it. You can see it just below the blossom in this picture. Pumpkin blossoms typically open just before dawn and only last one day, then they are gone forever. Joni found this one early this morning and got a couple of pics of it. I took this picture around noon and it was fully opened as you can see. I got the pic just in time though because about an hour later it had already begun to wilt, and by two o’clock it was closed up again.

Pumpkin plants grow male and female blossoms and it’s up to the bees to bring pollen from the male to the female, which will then grow into a pumpkin. You can tell a female blossom by the green fuzzy bulb just below the flower. Males, like this one, have no bulb. You can’t see that part of it in this picture, but this one is a male and they are more numerous than the females. There are lots of buds forming so I expect we’ll be seeing lots of blossoms in the coming days. I hope the bees get their job done quickly because these don’t last long!

1 comment:

  1. The first year here, I had an exciting crop of cucumbers. It was so hard keeping the weeds out and the flies were unbearable. The second year I gave up and just had a crop of black-eye susans, now this, our third year here, you have your sight and the ability to garden! Oh what joy it is seeing you SEE!!!

    And hey, once my garden starts BLOOMING you'll show them, right??? Right? Honey??? ;)

    :*

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