hand pollination

hand pollinating of flowers is a good thing to know how to do,
sometimes the bees are just not enough,
things like tomatoes will self pollinate if nothing is done for them,
beans almost always self pollinate even if you try to cross them,
squash needs to be pollinated,
in case it matters, squash flowers close soonish after they are pollinated,
I found this out now that I have because I have been hand pollinating them lately,

lots of people use paint brushes to pollinate,
but I have found that the pollen does not stick to many paint brushes,
so I changed to brushes made to hold powder (used for makeup)

got this one at the dollar store
it makes hand pollination way easier,

you tell the male and the female flowers apart because the female ones have a tiny fruit at the base of the flower,

and the male flowers have a skinny stem leading up to them

if you want to clean all the pollen off the brush (so that you are not crossing 2 things), then use the 70% rubbing alcohol, it kills pollen better than the 100% pure rubbing alcohol, or water by its self

it is pretty easy to do hand pollinating.

an update:
there is thick smoke in the air

it is from a fire that is not so near here,

it is making my head hurt,

nothing is going on today,
just watering plants and trapping for gophers,
and I miss my friends (I need a radio set up at home so I can talk to people)