Jennifer

It looks like Bush Pickle DOES need another variety for pollination if it's this one.

Somebody at the place where you bought it should have told you and included another plant! You could call them and politely tell them they "forgot" to include a pollinator plant (which you'd get if you'd bought the seeds) and you need a small one that will also grow without overwhelming your balcony.

If that won't do, email me and I'll send you some seeds of a bush cucumber myself that don't need an extra pollinator, just bees or little flies/wasps, etc. I have this one. There's still time to direct sow cukes right in the pot where you want them to grow. They germinate easily if kept warm and moist.

All Cucurbita(melons, squash,..cucumbers)have separate male and female flowers, . So then in order to produce fruits they need to be polinated. The probability of geting polinated by wind is very slim. The best polinators are bees, butterflies, moths, and maybe ants.

In absence of those polinators, you can do it yourself.
First, a litlle sex eduation about cucumbers:
The female flower(that has potential to become a cucumber) has a tiny fruit under the flower. The male DOES NOT.
Usually, in the begining you'll get more male flowers.
To polinate (make female pregnant hehe) there are two methods :
1- get a Qtip, rub it on male flower(young fresh one) then touch with that Qtip the female flower's sex organ, gently.

2- Other method that I prefer is to pick (gently without shaking) a male fower.Bring it over the female, and give them a KISS or two. throw away the male. For sure result, you may get rid of the petals on male flower , so that it would be much easier to polinate with it this way.

cyrus_gardner, it's not quite so simple in this case. The Bush Pickle variety is gynoecious so another variety that produces male flowers as well is neccesary.
Some varieties are also parthenocarpic (produce fruit without pollination). I'm growing Diva this year. Diva is both gynoecious and parthenocarpic.

Sci-Tech Dictionary: gynoecious
(gÄ«â²nÄ·shÉs)

(botany) Pertaining to plants that have only female flowers.

Jon