the pumpkin saga

We all know I've been trying to grow pumpkins.
I have three vines, each potentially capable of growing three to four 3 kilo pumpkins.
I didn't know about trimming the growing tips to encourage female flowers to bloom, so I'd been collecting pollen from the male flowers with a soft makeup brush, like this one here. See the yellow specks of pollen?




This, below, is the inside of a male flower. See the fuzzy pollen?

Here is the pollen from several flowers,

I've been keeping it in a glass, waiting for the female flowers. Hoping it would stay viable, not knowing how long it would keep, if at all.

Below is the inside of a female flower. After trimming the growing tips, two of these developed.

But there weren't any male flowers left!

So I brought the glass and brush outside and brushed pollen into the two flowers.

The female flowers have a swelling at the base, this is the part that develops into a pumpkin if the flower is successfully pollinated.

Three days later, I went outside to check. The flower had closed and was dying, as it does, unfortunately, the base was yellowing, so also dying. My hand pollination was unsuccessful.
Bugger!

I'm not sure if I did it wrong, too late, too early, or if the saved pollen was too old.

I'll wait for new flowers and try again.


Here's another view of the flower.

And one last shot. Pretty aren't they?