Tomatoes- How To Get One Out of Every Flower

People often ask me how I get so many tomatoes every year out of my tomato plants. Good soil, proper sunlight and the right amount of water are the usual answers, but I have a tip that I like to share with anyone who will listen. Electric toothbrush. Yes you heard me, electric toothbrush.

Tomatoes, eggplants and peppers are all self pollinating plants. That means they do not need a separate plant to pollinate. It works like this. When pollen from a plant’s stamen is transferred to that same plant’s stigma, it is called self-pollination. When pollen from a plant’s stamen is transferred to a different plant’s stigma, it is called cross-pollination. This is why tomatoes are some of the easier vegetables to grow. Self pollinating plants free their pollen when vibrated. A stiff breeze can do this, but in most cases it is shaken free by bees.

So now to my self pollinating tomato tip, the electric toothbrush. Knowing that bees buzz at a high rate of speed, it only seems logical that if you can come up with something that vibrates at a similar speed of a bee, you would get a similar result. In playing around on the ol’ Google machine, I found this to be true. Most electric toothbrushes vibrate at a similar speed as bees.

What I like to look for when I am going to manually pollinate my flowers is a nice curled petal that is pulled away from the stamen. You can somewhat see it in the image below.

Tomato Plant Tips — Petal curled away from the stamen

There really is no special technique to it. I like to get the flat back of the toothbrush right up against the stem and sepal. Not right on the pedals and stamen. Definitely don’t use the brush side of the toothbrush against the plant. I don’t really know if it will do any damage, but it seems like it would be rough on the plant.

As mentioned at the beginning, you can use the self pollinating toothbrush technique on all self pollinating plants such as peppers, eggplants and tomatoes. In the video below, I have some slow motion action of the process as it happens. You can see the pollen shoot out of the stamen once the flower begins to vibrate. The second clip is that of a Japanese Eggplant as well.

Once you get the hang out of using the toothbrush on your flowers, it becomes second nature. You can literally get a tomato out of every flower on your plant. It is pretty exciting if you enjoy the fresh taste of tomatoes through the season. Here is a look at a couple of young tomatoes that have come up from early season manual pollination.