Just a few days ago I mentioned in a gardening post comments that my
tomato plants had flowers but no fruit. I am growing Alicante, Gardener's Delight, and Italian Plum. Tomato flowers are self-fertilizing and I suspected there was a lack of pollination by the action of wind or bees as my tomato plants are sheltered, this year, by a
tomato house - Growhouse. It's odd that the bees pay the tomato flowers little attention and I think they are more interested in the raspberry flowers. I decided that the only thing to get the tomatoes setting fruit, apart from going around the flowers with a little brush and sweeping the
pollen grains from the anther to the stigma (external link), was to give the flowers a gentle shake. This I did by gently getting hold of the tomato main stem and giving the whole plant a little shake (much easier than try to shake individual flowers). I did this a week or so ago, and have done it on a regular basis since and it would seem that the idea has paid off.
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| Gardener's Delight, baby tomatoes 13 July 2013 |
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| Alicante, baby tomatoes, 13 July 2013 |
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| Italian Plum, baby tomato, 13 July 2013 |
So far there is no sign of pests or disease troubling the tomatoes. The only thing is that there are an awful lot of leaves. The dilemma is whether to cut off some lower ones to give the fruit more of a chance, or to leave them because cutting might allow disease to enter the plant. I think I'll leave them alone and just keep feeding the tomatoes and watering them well.
