How to pollinate Squash Plants

Squash plants contain both male and female flowers. Female flowers often grow lower than the male flowers and they are usually closer to the vine. Squash and other members of the curcubit family are insect pollinated so it is of course unnecessary to hand pollinate them, however if you are growing more than one variety of squash or pumpkin then you may want to hand pollinate to avoid cross pollination. 

It's quite an easy process once you have properly identified your male and female flowers. If you take a look below in the far right corner you will see what looks like a tiny baby squash with an unopened flower on the end, that is the female flower. On the left is the male flower which is now open and is much taller.

We usually blossom bag our male and female flowers. Once a male and female flower both open we remove the bags from both and then we clip the male flower off the vine. We then take the male flower to the female flower and we proceed to pollinate the female. Once we have pollinated the female flower we replace the bag until the flower falls off the squash and then we remove the bag for good. We then tie a ribbon around the squash stem loosely to identify all the hand pollinated squash.

Below is a male flower that we took and removed the outer petals to show you what the inside looks like. This flower is not yet shedding pollen, however once it does we would normally take it and use it like a paintbrush and paint the inside of the female flower. You can also remove the middle part or the anther, which sheds the pollen and place it in the female flower and just leave it until the female flower falls off the squash. 

You can also do this with other members of the curcubit family such as cucumbers and cantaloupes. It's a pretty simple process and an added bonus is you can quickly increase your yields. The best time to pollinate is in the early morning. It requires a constant daily check to gauge perfect timing. But it can be successfully done.

Well this pretty much wraps up the hand pollination process and by the way if your're wondering the squash in the picture above it's a North GA Candy Roaster.

Happy Gardening

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