Is the female the pollen or the pod parent? If it's the pollen parent parent, you should try storing some pollen in the fridge- if stored properly (and I'm not sure what properly is) it can be kept for up to a week I think. I pick up lots of tid bits here and there, this was something I read about pollinating water lilies. It certainly couldn't hurt to try!

I think you might end up with a cross if you use a different species. My brother raised punkininis one year. The had pumpkins and zucchini growing in the same patch and they crossed all by themselves. They had big green striped thingies. His wife made pie out of them.

Well, was it a good pie?

Hiya Trolip and all,

You can pollinate it with anything in the same genus (Cucurbita), but if you save the seeds from the fruit, they will be hybrids between the two types of plants (sometimes fun, sometimes not).

Azreno is right: you can collect the pollen from the male blooms and store it in the fridge (dry is best, so ideally in a sealed jar half-filled with flour and the pollen in a small, open envelope or container inside the jar (resting on top of the flour) so the flour can absorb the moisture). It will keep for quite a few weeks that way. I do the same thing all the time with various plants that do the same no-opposite-sex-blooms-open-at-the-same-time thing.

Moisture-removing silica gel works better than flour, but flour is a fine substitute for short, quick, storage.

Let us know what you do, and how it works out.

Take care,
Grant

Buy some new shoes and you'll get the silica gel.

Or you can probably get it at Michaels, but the shoes are more betterer.