Why didn’t the Q-tip work to pollinate potted cucumbers?

QI have a couple of questions regarding growing veggies in pots. I live in an apartment. I have done this for several years, but this year things did not go well.

I grew cucumber for the first time, and the plant is huge after five weeks. I got male flowers 10 times more than female flowers, but I have no bees or other insects coming to my balcony to do the pollination.

I manually pollinated the female with a Q-tip. A day later, I noticed the pollinated female was dying. After that, many male flowers shriveled and dropped. I only found two female flowers; one died after I did the pollination, the other is shriveling. What is happening here? I also planted a cayenne pepper, which after six weeks stopped growing, but there are some peppers. Do I need fertilizers?

I am trying to learn gardening and would appreciate your help. — Hailen, Bay Area

AYou don’t need a backyard to have a vegetable garden. Many vegetables can be grown in pots.

But it seems to be a bad year for cucumbers. Mine aren’t doing well, and some of my friends say their plants aren’t producing either. We’re all growing different varieties, so we’re just chalking it up to the 2020 curse.

Typically, cucumbers produce way more male blossoms than female. The male blooms open first to attract bees and pollinators, and then the female blooms will open. The blooms are shortlived, however, so the females need to be fertilized within a short time period. The female flower that started to shrivel wasn’t successfully pollinated.

If you don’t have pollinators, try planting a pot of flowers to attract them to your balcony. When you manually pollinate, taking pollen from the male and transferring it to the female, use an artist’s fine paintbrush. It works better and doesn’t risk damaging the flower.

As for your stunted