UK Gardeners Urged To Take An Electric Toothbrush To Their Tomato Plants

An electric toothbrush in gardenThis year’s onslaught of heat waves has left gardeners in an odd spot. Though strawberries and bumper crops may have come thick and fast earlier in the year, the relentlessly high temperatures we’ve seen this summer spell disaster for your grass. But a bumper season for ladybirds and a slow one for slugs might, at least, somewhat alleviate the stresses of fruit and veg growers in this horrid heat. For tomato growers in particular, though, “Farmer Jeff,” who grows fresh produce around the back of his townhouse, has some unorthodox advice. Using an electric toothbrush on the plants, he claimed, “tripled” his tommie harvest.Why would using an electric toothbrush help my tomato yield?Jeff admitted that he’s allergic to pollen, but uses the electric toothbrush’s head to “hand-pollinate” his tomato flowers without touching the allergen directly. “To hand-pollinate, I simply touch the green-bell-shaped part of the flower that’s behind the petals with the toothbrush,” he said. He uses the back of the toothbrush head, with the toothbrush turned on. The bristles may cause damage to delicate flowers, but the vibration helps to shake the pollen loose. “Gently hold the flower if necessary, use the non-bristle head of the toothbrush, and touch the flower in just one spot for one to two seconds,” he advised. This disperses pollen across the rest of the plant. View this post on InstagramA post shared by Farmer Jeff (@realfarmerjeff)Why does holding a toothbrush to a tomato plant work? It doesn’t need to be a toothbrush – you could also shake or tap the plant. The point is to get pollen from the flowers onto the stem and other parts of the plant, mimicking and/or boosting the effects of the wind and pollinators.It’s especially useful if you’re growing tomatoes in a greenhouse, because wind, bees, and birds find it hard to do their pollinating magic when your plants are sheltered. Tomatoes have both female and male pollen, meaning that even if the bees and breeze aren’t there to help their unusually heavy and sticky pollen move, they can still make more of their all-important fruit.If your bounty is a little low (or even non-existent), it could be because pollinators aren’t flocking to your plants as they should be. Or, you could have, I don’t know, just faced a very long, dry, still heatwave.In that case, a quick buzz of your electric toothbrush will go a long way.Related...Millions Of UK Gardeners Warned To Stop Using This Watering Technique By FridayUK Gardeners Urged To Pee In Watering Cans For 2 Surprising BenefitsUK Gardeners Urged To Avoid This Watering Mistake In A Heatwave

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