Mating of the vegetables

This year my zucchini, while having giant plants, have not produced the size and quantity of vegetables that they did last year. Several of them got to be just larger than baby carrots and then they start to rot. I was getting really frustrated until I googled it. It appears that the problem is that earlier in the summer we set up a bee trap to keep the bees away from the swing set. My garden is near the swing set, so we set the trap on the other side of the yard. I haven't noticed too many bees in the last month or two. Apparently the bees take the pollen from the male zucchini flowers and put them inside the female ones. If this doesn't happen, the zucchini stop growing and are small and rot. So, the sites I looked at suggested that I pick the male flowers and pull the petals off and tickle the inside of the female flower with the stamen. It sounds kind of naughty, but I may try it. If the neighbors hear giggling from me in the backyard, it's probably because I am mating my zucchini.