945 N. Harp female blossom almost ready to open-tip turning yellow

Last week I saw a bunch of male flowers, still small and closed but no female flowers. Yesterday I saw some baby female flowers with their baby fruit attached. Yea! Finally!

945 N. Harp female blossom not ready to open-blossom green

Yesterday I noticed the female blossoms are still small and closed but the male flowers are now blossoming and ready for the girls! There are two female blossoms on the main vines and 7 more on secondary vines. The picture on top is almost ready to open as the blossom is just starting to turn a subtle yellow color on the tip. In the other blossom pictures in this post, the blossoms are still very green and will open later. I will pollinate all of them when they are ready and see what I get.

895 Grande female flower

Look how different the shape of the baby pumpkins are on the different pumpkin plants! The 945 N. Harp pumpkin flowers have round little pumpkins attached and the 895 Grande pumpkin flower has an oval shaped pumpkins attached. I think that is so cool that you can start to see the future pumpkin shapes even on the blossoms.

Even though the blossom looks like it has a baby pumpkin attached to it, it still needs to be pollinated which happens after the flower opens. Some will abort if pollination is not complete or if the weather is too hot. I hope the females open this week as the weather is suppose to be perfect for pollination-80’s all week. Not too hot. Anything over 90 is problematic for pollination.