Tickle Your Tomato Plants Like This for Bumper Harvest

15.02.2024 - 05:01 / balconygardenweb.com / Raul Cornelius

While this may sound something straight out of some fairy tale, but this actually works! Tickle, and see your tomatoes producing bumper fruits!

Tomatoes are mostly self-pollinating and contain both the male and female reproductive organs (i.e., the stamen and stigma). This makes pollination easy because each blossom releases pollen from the stamen to land on its own stigma.

Buzz pollination is the most effective in terms of fruit size, yield quantities, and increased seed count. Certain insects are quite adept at it – as bumble bees (Bombus spp.) and carpenter bees (Xylocopa), vibrate their bodies to shake pollen from the anthers, or the parts of the stamens that hold the pollen.

Self-fertilizing plants, including many edible fruits and vegetables, have self-pollinating flowers. They can produce a crop from a single variety, as they have both male and female reproductive organs in their flowers.

Tomatoes, for instance, are self-pollinating, and one plant can yield a fruit crop without the need for another one.

However, natural conditions may not always be optimal for pollination, as factors such as high temperatures and excessive moisture or humidity can affect pollen movement. In the absence of wind, poor pollination may occur, affecting the plant’s ability to produce fruit.

Tickling your tomato plants increases the chances of a bountiful harvest of juicy and flavorful red tomatoes – but it’s not what you think. Tickling means transferring pollen so each blossom has the best opportunity for producing fruits. Here’s what to do.

Just snap the head of the tomato flower so it releases pollen and collect it in a container or your hand. Use the brush to pick it up and transfer it to the stigma of other flowers.

After pollinating your