Aquaponics - Cucumber

Cucumber.

Strange word.

Anyway, I've been getting good results with hand pollination. For some reason the female flowers (the ones with the fruit attached to the back of them, open well, but the males don't.

I thought bees were supposed to do this work. There are no bees anywhere doing anything. Is there a strike or something. Perhaps people are talking about it on TV. Maybe there is a reason to watch TV after all.

I planted my four cucumber plants in the corner of the growbed nearest the door. The door stays open for summer, so I trained the plants to grow outside.

Actually it doesn't really matter if the door was open or closed, they could be made to grow under the door with a little pruning.






I've been using a small, soft artist's paint brush to tickle all the flowers on my plants and do the bees work for them.

Every female flower I've hand pollinated has produced a very tasty fruit, but none of those that I left for the bees have manage to set fruit.

There seems to be a lot of fruit. More than we could use, but they are finding good homes with friends and relatives.

One even went to a friendly relative.





120 Things in 20 years - Cucumber is still a funny word.