You know, when my roomie first bought her house, she planted a garden out back and grew a lot of her own veggies. She stopped that after a few years, because it was getting to be too much work.
Well, last summer, somehow a gourd plant ended up in one of the garden areas (I think it was brought by a bird), and because it looked so nice, I decided to let it grow where it was. After awhile, it got these really cool looking yellowish orange flowers. And, after a week or so, there was a small gourd starting to grow. Well, there were anywhere from 5 to 10 flowers on the other stalks, and I was hoping there would be a serious yield from the plant because there were so many flowers.
I took good care of that plant over the summer, hoping to see what kind of gourd it was growing. And, when I saw that none of the other flowers were being pollinated, I took a paintbrush out and tried to do it myself. One flower tried to start a gourd, but by the time it did, it was too late in the growing season.
There used to be lots of bees around here. My roomie has cherry trees out back, and they used to hang around there on a regular basis. Last summer, I think I saw a grand total of maybe 3 individual bees. Explains why my plant didn't grow much.
What do I think is causing it? Simple.................Monsanto insect and weed killer and GMO's. And, if we keep it up, we won't need to worry about the weed and insect killers, because there won't be any food, because plants REQUIRE insects in order to be pollinated and bear fruit and veggies.