Alt: Photo of young green cherry tomatoes on a tomato plant on a balcony. The photo mostly shows green tomato plant foliage. There are some yellow tomato flowers in the top left corner of the frame.
I pollinated cherry tomatoes on my balcony with a cotton swab for the first time and it's working well!
6 Comments
evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 2y
I hand pollinate a lot of my plants, especially cherry tomatoes. If you don't do it, you'll probably still get plenty of tomatoes, but you won't get that nice neat row.
The_v@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 2y
FYI Tomato flowers are cleistogamous and are 95%+ self-pollinating. So pollen on tomato flowers doesn't actually need to be transfered between flowers. The flowers just need to be shaken up a bit to get the pollen to drop from the anther to the pistil.
So take something that vibrates like a electric toothbrush, massager, or other personal devices (wink, wink) and shake the hell out of the flowers.
SoySaucePrinterInk@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2y
TIL! Thank you kind gardener.
ganksy@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2y
Nice! I've helped pollinate before. Did you go from flowers on the same plant or other plants?
SoySaucePrinterInk@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 2y
I went from flowers on the same plant. Admittedly, I know nothing about pollination.
ganksy@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 2y
I'll try that. I'm sure it can't hurt. Thanks!