How to Molest Your Zucchini

Summer squashes such as Zucchini are some of my favorite vegetables to grow in a home garden. You may notice that no matter how well you take care of them, the damn plants won’t produce any fruit. Well, part of this problem is that there are a lot less bees out there to perform the pollination of these plants, and so the plants just grow large with no fruit growing on them. So you have to give Mother Nature a helping hand. Cue the porno music.

Exhibit A, the female Zucchini flower. See how it has all that squiggly stuff inside? Those are the pistils, which are the female reproductive organs. Note that at the base of the flower, there is a baby Zucchini attached. If it doesn’t get fertilized, the fruit gets aborted.

Another raunchy female flower closeup.

Exhibit B, the male flower which has a single stamen and it is covered in pollen. They are usually higher on the plant and are on a thin stalk. The females are lower, as they have to produce fruit, and are attached to the base of the plant. You’ll want to take a cotton swab and swab out as much pollen out of the male flower as you can.

Swab closeup.

You’ll want to do this early in the morning when the flowers are actually open. Rub the pollen-coated swab all over the female pistils in order to pollinate them. Try to get pollen from as many male plants as you can. I suppose you could also cross pollinate between different kinds of squashes but then you might get some bizarre results.

Zucchini growing.