Gourd Gender

Zucchini, melons, and several other cucurbits offer the added bonus of producing edible flowers. But it's important to know which flowers are male and which will produce the fruit you planted for in the first place.

​If you stuff all your male zucchini flowers with cream cheese and breadcrumbs, there may not be enough pollen available to pollinate the female flowers. Unless you have self-pollinating plants, that would mean no zucchinis and no chocolate zucchini cake!

Male (left) and female (right) zucchini flower buds.

In the photo above, you can see one long-stemmed flower bud on the left and one stubby flower bud on the right.

The longer stemmed bud is male. Male zucchini flowers appear everywhere on the plant and usually before female flowers. They have a distinctive cup at the base, and a knobby, pollen-coated stamen inside the flower. That pollen can be collected for later use, just make sure it doesn't get moldy.

The female bud stem is shorter and thicker, and it does not have the cup-shaped base. Instead, what looks like a stem is a (potential) baby zucchini.

Female flowers tend to stay near the middle of the plant, though not always. 

After the flowers open, pollen from the male flower has to come into contact with the female flower's pistil. This usually occurs thanks to pollinators, such as honeybees. My indoor windowsill garden requires hand-pollination, which simply means touching flowers repeatedly with a natural bristle paint brush every day that the female flowers are open. Indoor gardening is a lot easier than many people think.

Male zucchini flower

Female zucchini flower pistil

Over the next few weeks, I will be adding photos to show you how the fruit develops.

​Be sure to check back for updates!