Learning How to Pollinate the Squash

Shirley Packard, a neighbor from up the block, asked my wife if she knew what was growing out front in a certain pot. She had a triumphant tone to her voice.

My wife was bewildered. She had lots of things growing in pots in our small front patio--French zucchini, tomatoes, chives, peppers, rosemary, Grecian laurel, basil and a single magnificent Charlotte Armstrong rosebush, to which I had appended affectionately to its name, “The All-American Girl.” This recalls that red-blooded lad of old-time radio drama fame, Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, to whom I listened avidly when a youth.

The rose bush was a birthday gift from me to her a couple of years ago. Although I’m awfully fond of roses, I must confess that Jack’s imaginary sister was presented in self-defense. Whenever my wife used to grow crotchety, she would complain that I never brought her roses anymore, as in our courting days.

Now she has been forced to complain about something else, for she has roses in abundance. Now it’s my old, comfortable bathrobe, with holes at the elbows, that I refuse to part with or stop wearing, even though she gave me a new one last Christmas.

But I digress. Shirley Packard had a book in hand. “Look,” she said, pointing at a picture in it. “There. It’s purslane! And you can put it in your gumbo soup.”

My wife’s bewilderment increased: “What is it, where is it?”

“It’s a lovely weed, and here it is,” pointing out a neglected pot in a corner that my wife was planning to use to increase her production of chives to use on scrambled eggs and baked potatoes.

Referring to her book, Mrs. Packard explained that purslane was a savory food that was India’s gift to the world. It can be used raw, cooked, frozen or pickled. Its mucilaginous characteristic, she said, makes it a valuable addition to soups and stews, much like okra, to give gumbo a desirable consistency. She knew my wife makes a great chicken gumbo.

Purslane is regarded generally as a pesky garden weed. So, naturally, owing to the hardiness of such unwanted plants, our neglected purslane was thriving better than our carefully tended “invited” plants, especially the special French zucchini, which was supposed to produce an abundant crop of small, round squash.

This squash is picked young by the noted writer on matters gastronomic, M.F.K. Fisher, who claims that, cooked lightly and eaten simply with butter and salt and pepper, there’s nothing more delicious. And it’s easy on her aging digestion, she says.

Alas, my wife’s zucchini seems to lack the legendary French ardor. It has flowered, but has produced barely a handful of Fisher’s celebrated stomachic. My wife has learned, to her astonishment, that there are male and female squash plants, and the male ones must pollinate the female ones to produce vegetables.

“Only the French would think of something like that,” she huffed, and went out to the garage to fetch a small paint brush, which, she had been advised, could be used to transfer male pollen to female blossoms.

It was then she ran into real trouble. She couldn’t tell a male French zucchini plant from a female one. So she began brushing pollen willy-nilly from yellow bloom to yellow bloom. That was a while ago. So far there has been no improvement in the sex life of our poor zucchini.

You’d think it would be easy to tell one zucchini from the other. The bees seems to know, without consulting books on botany and horticulture.

Maybe, I suggested to my wife, she could sew herself up a bee costume and thus fool the zucchini into revealing its true identities.

She didn’t think it was funny, and told me to put on my old bathrobe and hide in the closet.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Packard, who took home some of our purslane, has reported back that it was good. She appeared to be well and healthy, so I figure it’s safe now to eat some myself.