How to Hand Pollinate Tomatoes in Your Garden

Tomatoes are among the most popular and exciting vegetables to grow in your garden, but what should you do when your plants only produce flowers and no fruits? These juicy red (or orange, yellow, or purple) fruits require pollination from wind and bees, or in some cases, humans.

If your tomato plants are dropping flowers or failing to produce fruit, you may need to hand-pollinate them to ensure you grow a harvestable yield. Let’s dig into why, when, and how to hand-pollinate tomatoes. It isn’t as tricky as it sounds!

Why Hand-Pollinate Tomatoes?

Hand pollination can improve tomato yields, particularly in an enclosed environment (like a greenhouse or indoor container garden) or during bad weather when natural pollinators aren’t active.

Even when growing outdoors, nature sometimes fails to pollinate our tomatoes. If your plants drop flowers or refuse to develop fruit, a little human assistance can go a long way.

Do You Need to Pollinate Your Tomatoes By Hand?

Your tomatoes will probably need pollination assistance if you’re growing in a greenhouse, plastic tunnel, container, or windowsill. Certain conditions call for hand pollination, such as a lack of wind or growing in a protected garden area without airflow.

If there is bad weather, bees may not be active. If it is humid, wet, and muggy, the powdery pollen can clump together and not move, and you may need to pollinate your plants by hand.

Are Tomatoes Self-Pollinating?

Tomatoes are naturally self-pollinating monoecious crops. Monoecious means that one plant has both male and female parts.

Self-pollinating means one plant can reproduce on its own. Moreover, tomato flowers are considered “perfect” or “complete” flowers because they have both the female (pistil) and male (stamen) flower parts within each bloom. 

In other words, you don’t need two tomato plants to produce a tomato fruit… Well, sometimes. All botanical jargon aside, tomatoes aren’t always perfect at pollinating. There are certain instances where natural pollination isn’t occurring, and they need assistance moving the pollen from the female part to the male part.

Wind and bees are the usual purveyors of tomato sexual favors, but wind usually does the bulk of the work. Air either quivers the plant and knocks the pollen loose or blows little pollen granules from the anthers (male parts) to the sticky stigma (female parts). In other words, the pollen falls within the flower to pollinate itself.

When your garden has abundant floral resources, bees fly in to help. As they try to reach the nectar inside a tomato flower, their furry bodies gather pollen and roll it around, effectively moving the pollen from the anther to the stigma. If your plants continually struggle with pollination, try to attract more pollinators to your garden via native plants.

8 Steps to Pollinate Tomatoes by Hand

Hand pollinating is easier than it sounds. You don’t even need to know the botanical science behind it! Just imagine yourself as a little bee gathering pollen and moving it around. You only need the right timing, a paintbrush or toothbrush, and patience.

Choose the right time

The best time to hand-pollinate tomato flowers is in the middle of the day when a plant has several healthy, open yellow flowers. Ideally, choose a warm, sunny day with low humidity. 

Fortunately, this process still works during bad weather conditions. If you live in a crazy humid climate or just received a lot of rain, this method will still work, but you may opt for the electric toothbrush to help distribute the clumpy pollen more easily.

If you want to skip all the steps below, simply shake your plants. A firm shake from the top of the plant will cause the flowers to release pollen and distribute it to the female flower parts. Commercial pollinators use electric vibrator devices to achieve this on a larger scale.

As a bonus, shaking can help you find tomato hornworms. If you rattle your tomato trellis around, hornworms will often hiss at you (those little demons!), revealing their camouflaged spot on the tomato foliage. 

 You could also add a strong fan to the area to simulate blowing wind.

Use a small brush

You can use a tiny paintbrush or a toothbrush to hand-pollinate your tomatoes. Some people even use an electric toothbrush to ramp up pollen distribution! A Q-tip, or worst-case scenario, your finger can also work.

Move the brush around inside the flower

Because tomatoes have perfect flowers, you don’t have to move pollen from one flower to another as you would with squash. Instead, move your tool around inside each flower, shake it well, and move to the next. 

Transporting pollen between flowers is no big deal if you grow the same variety. However, you could have a few funky “off-types” if you cross-pollinate two different cultivars and then try to save seed from the resulting fruit. Cross-pollination does not impact the type of fruit your parent plant produces, only the seeds it generates.

Be very gentle

Tomato blossoms are fragile and can easily rip or fall from the plant. No matter what method you use, be careful not to damage the flowers. If you’re afraid of touching the flowers, shaking the plant is the ideal method for you.

It’s best to hand pollinate with your bare hands so gloves don’t impede your nimble fingers. If you accidentally knock a few flowers off, no big deal! Most tomato plants will grow back more in a few days.  

Repeat every 2-3 days

To ensure optimum yields, it helps to shake, vibrate, or transfer tomato pollen every few days while conditions are ideal. This isn’t 100% necessary, but it gives you the maximum chance at success.

In my garden, I prioritize the tomatoes that need it most: those growing in the high tunnel and those that produce the largest heirloom fruits.

Check that tomatoes are pollinated

Observing the stem is the easiest way to tell if a tomato flower is pollinated. Every flower emerges from the central stem on a smaller green stem.

If the stem stays green and enlarges into a little green bulb at the base, the flower is successfully pollinated, and the fruit is growing. The bulbous growth is an ovary where the fruit will grow.

Pollination has failed if the flower’s stem turns yellow and begins to wither. You won’t see any enlarging ovary at its base.

In both cases, the flower will eventually drop from the plant, so don’t panic if you see tomato flowers on the soil. A pollinated flower will wilt within 24 hours and fall off the plant in a couple of days. 

Depending on whether you have a determinate or indeterminate plant, your tomato may only produce flowers during a two-week period (determinate) or continue producing flowers for the duration of the season (indeterminate).

Support plant health

Once you’ve completed your tomato pollination mission, check that your plants receive everything they need. They should be robust and vibrant green with strong stalks and plenty of leaves. They should actively produce new flowers every week and send out suckers (which you may want to remove for optimal yield). 

When a tomato plant begins flowering and fruiting, avoid feeding it any additional nitrogen. Too much nitrogen can promote excessive foliage growth.

We want the plant to channel its energy into fruits! Ideally, you should fertilize when planting with an all-purpose blend like Espoma Tomato-Tone. 

After hand pollination, it’s a great time to add another dose of Tomato-tone or any fertilizer high in phosphorus. Phosphorus (the middle number on N-P-K) is most important for producing large, juicy, delicious fruits.

Be patient 

Most tomato varieties yield mature fruit two to three weeks after the flowers open. However, it should be clear whether pollination was successful within a week.

Once the fruit begins growing, all you need to do is be patient! Let your tomatoes ripen on the vine for the best flavor.