Rejoice, for we are heading into high tomato season. Hopefully, your tomato plants are now producing actual tomatoes; with any luck, you’re seeing the first blushes of color. If your vines look healthy—full of blossoms but lacking actual tomatoes—it may be time to break out a vibrator.
But first, a sex ed lesson.
Where baby veggies and fruits come from
For most vegetable and fruit plants, flowers are produced when a plant reaches maturity. Those flowers come in male and female forms; female flowers are capable of producing fruit and male flowers have stamens and pollen. In order to produce fruit, the female flowers need the pollen, and there are only a few ways that pollen makes the jump.
Bees are our first and best hope for great pollination. Those zippy little worker dudes go from flower to flower, collecting pollen on their legs, and as they move about, that pollen ends up in the right place most of the time and boom: baby vegetables. The wind plays a natural role as well, particularly for crops like corn, which is why you place corn plants in close proximity to each other. When the tassels begin to show, the wind will blow them around, and you get pollination.
How to help your plants pollinate
If these methods fail, either because it’s a bad year for bees or there isn’t much wind, you can step in to help. On larger plants like zucchini and watermelon, it’s easy to pollinate each blossom by hand—grab a stamen and rub it on a flower.
For plants with many blossoms, you can mimic the wind by vibrating the plant. For corn, you give the tassels a good shake. For more delicate plants like tomatoes, peppers, and peas, you’ll want a faster, less intense vibration.
Take a vibrator for a garden tour
In most tutorials for hand pollination, the suggested tool is an electric toothbrush: You hold the toothbrush against the main stem and give it 30 seconds of good vibes. But if you feel comfortable flitting through the garden with a vibrator, they work, too.
If you don’t have an electric toothbrush or a vibrator, they make vibes just for gardening, such as this one. As the shape suggests, it’s basically an electric toothbrush with some marketing.
Good vibes only:
After 30 seconds of vibrating, you should see some yellow pollen in the air. For some plants, like pumpkins, you’ll see fruit a day or two later. Tomatoes and other vegetables may take longer, so you should repeat the vibrating every few days until you see results.
