June 20th - Pollination Day

This doesn't seem to be a recognized holliday. In any case, this is one of the male flowers I'll be using today.







First you remove the petals, leaving just the innards and the pollen.










There's the female. The bricks are set up to help hold in the cool air. I'll be putting out blue ice packs later to keep it cool. It was 92 degrees at 7:30 pm tonight, and that is not pumpkin weather.






The inside of the female bloom. A beautiful if not-quite-perfect six lobe bloom! The honey bees and I had a pretty fierce fight for rights to the flowers this morning.







And pollination is complete. Now just hope the fruit doesn't abort due to the hot weather or for some other reason.