Pollenating cucumbers

[tcaheath]

I'm a beginner gardener and planted cucumbers in pots on my very sunny but screened in patio in south Florida. I only have two cucumbers, and read that it is probably due to not getting pollinated.

It was suggested to use a q-tip to pollinate from the male flowers to the female flowers. But I could not actually see any pollen. So Instead, I took off a male flower and rubbed it on the female.

Is there something else I should try?

[honeylemon]

According to what I've read from books for proper pollination, there should be pollen present and must be transferred from male flower to the female flower. Honeybees and pollinating insects usually do this. But if you don't see any pollen, try peeling male flower down to the base of it. Then, you can try rubbing 2 male flowers to 1 female flower. On the other hand, your pollination problem could have been caused by hot temperature that is killing your pollen. Try to place it somewhere that will not cause stress to your cucumber due to hot weather.

[fireflies]

Pick a male flower from the plant that is producing pollen and carefully remove the petals without touching the anther. Then select a newly opened female flower . Place the anther inside the female flower just touching the anther and stigma together. Bring a twist tie over the petals and gently clamp it down. Folding the tie over itself at the end will hold it in place. This is best done in the morning when plants are more receptive to be pollinated.

[mycoman]

it depends on how serious you are a gardener. I know that competitive gardeners do what fireflies recommends (so that they know which is crossed with which) personally, i do the use the tip of a branch from one of my tomatoes (a little sticky, and plenty of 'hairs' to have pollen stick to) and i just go through my patch sticking it into every flower i find, and i get plenty of yield.

[leeza09]

I am not sure how far it will be successful if we manually try to pollinate since you are new to gardening experienced people will be doing it with ease. if it occurs naturally then it will be fast. since you told there are no pollens wait for some more days to see whether they are naturally pollinating.