Rumpy Pumpy

Since I wrote my first post for UK Handmade, two of my pumpkins have fallen off the vine! 

*Boom boom* indeed. Serves me right for teasing my pumpkins *waaaaaaail*

So we brought him in and decided to try and eat the little chap. I threw him into an aubergine and minced pork stirfry I was making, and he was quite edible, but what a little bitter gourd!

My mum-in-law, who lives in Devon, mentioned that plants could use a little help with fertilisation to increase fruit yields. So she's been using her hand to do the job, dibbling her fingers in the male, then female, flowers of her nectarine trees down south.  Her efforts have yielded a bumper crop of nectarines this year, and while It's not often one gets advice on how to have great plant sex from the MIL, I decided to try it. So I've been getting my fingers dirty in the garden... dibbling away... but since the little pumpies fell off, I guess I simply wasn't doing it right     *droop*

Then my next-door neighbour told me that I need to put the male bit in the female bit. Ahh, yesss...so in my zealousy, I broke it off and showed 'im where to put it!  Now, I don't know if I'm allowed to publish this, so parents please shield your children's eyes from this next picture of explicit pumpy rumpy *hand over screen*

She tried to act all coy, hiding under the foliage, but her wide-open petals told me she was ready...

I think this might be a good point to break the tension with the sensible birds and bees bit:

Female flowers each bloom on a small baby pumpkin, which, if left unfertilised, will eventually fall off the vine. I learnt this the hard way, so here's hoping you'll have more success than I did at my first attempt to grow my own pumpy. You can rely on the birds and bees, but this is more uncertain, so taking Nature into your own hands will increase your chances that you'll have a Jack O'Lantern for Halloween. You can tell the boy and girl flowers apart very easily. The boy grows on a long thin stalk and has a single stamen when they bloom so he's Willy all the way, whereas the girl sits on her ovary (the tiny pumpkin)...much like Henrietta sitting on her eggs, I suppose. Nature is so consistent...and feminist! You can so tell she's a woman. In this case, it's the girl who wields the pistil, and there are numerous boy flowers to each girl one. None of this one-bullock-to-an-entire-herd-of-cows pat (geddit? cow...pat...) or one-cock-for-all-the-broody-chickens lark. Morning nookie is best, as the flowers tend to close-shop later in the day. If he's mature enough, the boy should release his pollen if you rub his stamen gently with your finger. Then make sure the pollen comes into contact with all segments of the girl's stigma. You can leave the stamen in the girl flower - I inserted it (see picture above). Hey, might as well go all the way, right?

There're more details about this, and many other bad jokes about rumpy Pumpy at the Pumpkin Nook.

In my eagerness to bear fruit, I also opened a slightly withered flower and pollinated that one too. I don't know yet how I feel about all this pumpkin pimpin'. These ladies don't give much away, but ask me again in a few weeks and I'll let you know if they've moved on yet.