Cucumbers

Boy and girl cucumber flowers?

Haven't heard of those, eh?

It's true.  The cucumber plant had male and female flowers on them. (See picture below.) The tiny yellow flowers on the left are girl cucumber flowers. The last two elongated structures are male cucumber flowers. (I mistook the last two for baby cucumbers.)

So I experimented with the cucumber plant some time last year and learned about hand pollination. Never heard of those, eh? 

If you leave it to nature, the garden insect visits the boy flower, (which appeared earlier than the girls) gets some of those magical stuff on its body which it then transfers to the girls. Now pregnant, the cucumber starts appearing behind the girl flower. Having served their purpose, the boys drop off.

Unfortunately, my cucumbers never reach maturity. They stopped growing at some point and turned yellow. This is due to incomplete pollination. Hand pollination is about using a paint brush to transfer the pollen from the boys to the girls.

So now you know everything there is to know about cucumbers.