We investigated the process for breeding naked pumpkins from Patricia's seeds. The hopeful farmer identifies a number of about-to-open blossoms and tapes them shut on the evening before they will open.
Then, early the next morning, the farmer untapes the blossoms. She rubs the pollen from the male rod onto the female basket. If there are several candidate male blossoms, she uses them all. The more pollen the better!
 |  |
Then the female blossom is taped tight again to prevent any further bee helpers from carrying in wayward genetic material.
This last year a local artist, Lou Cabeen, came out to help us. She tied a red-threaded chastity-belt onto our fertilized female blossoms.
The blossom is tagged so that if a fruit sets, the farmer knows to save those seeds for planting the following year. Luckily, one carefully fertilized pumpkin in both 2017 and 2018 "set."
Our vines produced many more pumpkins, but those fruits may or may not have been pollinated by other naked pumpkins. So we have enjoyed eating them, but haven't counted on them to grow next year's crop.
The mature pumpkin with its naked seeds looks like this, ready to make into a delicious soup.
The mature pumpkin with its naked seeds looks like this, ready to make into a delicious soup.
RSS Feed