Gardening: Tricks to help garden vegetables pollinate

We are finally getting the right weather to ripen tomatoes, zucchini, peppers, basil and a whole host of other warm-season crops. We will get a bump into the 90s for a few days and then another stretch of 80s into next week. The best news is that the night temperatures aren’t getting below 55 degrees, which is critical for some warm-season crops to set fruit.

With the cool start of summer, we’ve lost a lot of growing time and the next four weeks will be critical to getting a crop. Our summer weather begins to cool after the middle of August, especially at night. So it’s time to practice a little intervention to help the plants set fruit.

Honeybees, native bees and other insects are responsible for much of the pollination of vegetable plants. That’s why there has been so much concern about protecting them and providing habitat. While most of the habitat development is done in the spring, you can help them out now by providing them water in a large container with gently sloping edges that is regularly refilled with a dripper. I have a leaky sprinkler pipe that fills a depression that they really like.

You can also help out by doing a little hand-pollinating with an old electric toothbrush. Tomatoes and peppers have both male and female parts in the flower, which means it is relatively easy for moving air or a visiting bumblebee to transfer the pollen. To help the process along, place the toothbrush head just behind a flower cluster and turn it on “brush” for three to four seconds. This vibrates the flower and shakes loose the pollen. Repeat to other clusters of flowers. Check back in a week to see if there are tiny tomatoes forming. This same process can be used on peppers.

Cucumbers and squash can also be pollinated by hand to encourage fruit set. These plants have separate male and female flowers on the same plant. A female flower will have a swollen area just below the base of the flower that, when pollinated, will swell into a fruit. The male flowers won’t have any swelling at their base and often bloom well before the female flowers. There are probably a lot of plants out there right now covered in male flowers.

Hand-pollinating squash, melons and cucumber also involves moving pollen from the male flower to the female. Find a male flower, the one without the bulge at the base, and gently remove all the petals so you have just the anther covered in yellow pollen. Gently open the petals a little on the female flower and tap the anther on the stigma in the center of the flower. This will transfer the pollen and fertilize the flower. Again, check back in a week or so for signs of tiny new fruits.

Lastly, basil is finally getting the really warm weather it needs, so apply some 10-10-10 fertilizer or blood meal now to encourage growth.

Pat Munts is co-author, with Susan Mulvihill, of the “Northwest Gardener’s Handbook.” Munts can be reached at pat@inlandnw gardening.com.