View the Cucumber page

10 Mar 09 Barb (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

Hi Jenny, Cucumbers have male flowers and female flowers. (females have a mini cucumber behind the flower. Sometimes the bees are too few to get the pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers, so you can use a little paintbrush to take pollen from the male flowers over to the female flowers. If you don't yet have female flowers then wait a bit - the male flowers seem to come first. Applying a soluble complete fertilser with potassium seems to help bring on female flowers - or maybe this is coincidence.

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