Often I get antsy and start searching the internet to find garden information. I stumbled upon an article from the New York Times headlined “Gadgets to Help Tend a Garden.”
The first gadget described in the article was the VegiBee. Apparently, the inventor had a disappointing crop of tomatoes one year and he came up with the Vegibee to help increase his yield. The inventor felt that his tomatoes were a failure because they were not being adequately pollinated and that the bees were not doing their job.
Whoa!! I had never heard that before! Now here my garden in Guerneville, CA on the Russian River, I have been growing tomatoes for years and I can swear on a stack of bibles that I have never ever seen a bee on my tomato blossoms looking for pollen. And I found another gardening forum comment that mentioned that there are not many other insects either that are attracted to tomatoes flowers. I never considered the possibility that the tomatoes I have always harvested in past years were created by some type of pollination process or that I needed to insure that it was taking place properly as a factor in my yields.
The fact is that I have mostly had very high tomato yields and I never did anything to get them. The only times I have small yields is due to weather, temperatures, watering & fertilizer issues, etc. I have never seen a need for me to blame the bees since I never saw any.
Further internet research led me to discover that tomatoes are self pollinating (Ooops! This is the wrong term. See discussion below). I did not know that. They have all of the parts to complete the act to produce tomatoes for you, therefore bees or other pollinating insects are not really necessary. All it takes, when the blooms are ready, is a slight breeze and gravity. Some recommend that every time you pass by your tomatoes, you should give your plants a slight wobble or shake and this will help to dislodge pollen to get the process going.
One post I found stated that it is wrong to say that tomatoes are self-pollinating (see Old Drone blog). The post, entitled, “A simple explanation of tomato pollination, please?” states: “The tomato must have help. It requires MOTION to release the pollen. Wind can accomplish this to some extent. Pollen grains are shaken loose and may land on the sticky stigma, thus accomplishing fertilization of some of the seeds. Note that this is not self pollination, as the tomato could not do this of itself.”
Also, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollenizer), “a plant can only be a pollinator when it is self-fertile and it physically pollinates itself without the aid of an external pollinator, as in the case of apomictic species like some rowans and hawthorns.” Therefore, tomatoes can never truly be self-pollinating because they need an external pollinator such as bees or wind or human intervention.
The inventor of the VegiBee also mentioned in the Times article that his device improves upon the use of battery operated toothbrushes that some people apparently use to release tomato pollen. What? Can you imagine people in their gardens with an electric toothbrush trying to pollinate their little yellow flowers? Some posters in internet forums (see my Google search link) mention that others just use a regular toothbrush. Other posts suggest using a light paintbrush or a pencil. The image that is created in my mind of someone doing this is beyond ridiculous in my opinion. Tomato blossoms are generally very small in the first place and they look awfully delicate to me. I would personally find it very hard to do anything that might damage them in any way. There is no way I would be nudging them with a pencil or any kind of toothbrush.
Once my tomatoes get going in my garden with lots of sun and warm temperatures, the flowers show up like countless yellow stars in a sea of green. This is is especially true of the cherry varieties I have grown over the years. So, why should I be standing in my garden over these plants with an electric toothbrush trying to pollinate every one of those little blooms in order to increase my yield? I will answer my own question: “Ain’t gonna happen around here! No way and no how!” I feel it is not necessary to use such a tool, even without bees and I find it hard to believe that people have the time to do this when there are so many other fun and important things that need to be done in the garden.
If you want or feel you need a VegiBee or a plain old electric toothbrush, then go for it. I will let the warm breezes do the work for me or I might gently shake my plants to release the pollen that is necessary to create delicious tomatoes. I will then smile and move on to other satisfying garden chores.
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