The female flower is low on the vine growing off a mini-starter baby pumpkin and when the wide blossom opens up it has a very fat almost foot-stool shaped middle. I have no idea what the technical term for the middle is - stamen?
The male flower is on a tall stalk growing straight up from the vine, the blossom is not as wide and has a much thinner longer middle part - tech term pistil?
Anyhoo, the idea is to get the tall flower's pollen (located on the longer thinner middle part) onto the low flower's fat middle part - thus creating a fertilized pumpkin. How you can tell you did the procedure correctly is that the mini-starter pumpkin instead of not growing and rotting away, starts to swell almost immediately the day after you played matchmaker.
You can do this for squash, zucchini, and cucumbers.
So now you know. Happy fertilizing!
Gardening factoids courtesy of my Mom, Wednesday's Child, and her "gay zucchini story" which is not only educational but extremely pants-wetting as well. Thank you, oh, Master Gardner, you!
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