Break off a few MALE flowers and you can use a small paintbrush, Q-tip or even the male flower itself by removing the petals. Find a FEMALE flower that has just opened (you only get a few hours to do this usually) and wipe the pollen from the male inside the female. It's harder doing watermelons for me because the flowers are really small (compared to Atlantic Giant pumpkins.) The female flowers have a little tiny watermelon between the vine and the flower petals, maybe about the size of a pea, or maybe 1/8" x 1/2" for oblong types. The males have a very thin stem that can be up to a couple inches long between the vine and flower petals. The trick is of course having both, since the males usually outnumber the females by a large margin. You may only get a few female flowers on an entire plant, vs 20...30.... even 50 male flowers. You need 2 to tango... Hope this helps. Mark

I saved about 10 different kinds of seeds this year including some blue lake beans. Surprisingly they were my biggest challenge. Those that matured wanted to rot but I did get a few. Wait until the pods turn brown. The pod will hold the seeds. You don't need the stocking.

Too late to segregate, Seysonn. The seeds are saved mixed from multiple fruits. I saw bumble bees going from flower to flower in the garden, so that's why I felt there would be cross pollination. I could grow maybe 2 or three trial plants, but I want different varieties and don't have much room. Your suggestion on preventing cross-pollination sounds like just the thing if one of the trial plants shows the desired characteristics. Although I have been growing backyard tomatoes for decades, I am really new at seed saving and have no experience whatsoever in developing a variety. I have easily 100 surplus seeds, so I could farm them out if people here feel they would like a few to help the endeavor.

I am in no way an expert, but I do know from my calathea that yellowish tips like that indicate that I may have given them a bit too much water. Did you change your schedule of watering while the plplant was receiving less light? I see a moisture meter on the picture so I'm guessing you use that as your guide. Besides that.. what your little beauty there just went through is quite traumatic for a plant (being moved to less light, get sticky oil all over you), add that calathea ornata is a major dramaqueen.. She's bound to let you know she's not happy. Just pamper her like you used to, she'll be grumpy for a bit, drop some leaves maybe, but she'll be fine.