How to pollinate zucchini plants

The only tricky aspect of growing zucchini can be ensuring plants are pollinated and so produce the fruit that’s a kitchen staple year round. These tips from Penny Woodward will help.

Zucchinis produce male and female flowers, with the male flower on a long, slender stem, and the female flower occurring with the tiny developing fruit behind. If the female flower is not fertilised, this fruit will collapse and fall off the plant. If it is fertilised, then the fruit will start to grow.

When the weather is very hot or wet, or there are no bees or other pollinators around, then sometimes there will be no fruit. In very hot weather you may only get male flowers, so no zucchini will grow.

If needed though, you can do the pollinating yourself. Detach a male flower and break off the petals so that the central stamens are exposed; these are covered in pollen. Poke this into the female flower so that the stamen touches the central stigma and the pollen is transferred. One male flower can be used to pollinate lots of female flowers. If you don’t want to break off a male flower, then use a paintbrush to collect pollen from the stamens in the male flower, and then transfer this pollen by touching the brush onto the stigma in the female flower. Pollination is best done in the morning as the female flowers close up in the afternoon.