Solve one problem create another

"when flowers fail to produce fruits before they wither and drop – is one of the most common complaints among tomato growers. It’s frustrating and it’s not fair, particularly given all the attention you’ve no doubt lavished on your plants to get them this far." GrowVeg

I felt so grateful to David for constructing a netting cage around my little vegetable plot, no matter how wobbly and flappy it is. Anything I try to grow here in the way of food, inevitably gets eaten by something - birds, rabbits, kangaroos, deer - you name it we've got it. So netting them all is a real bonus. We did it last year, though not quite as well - it was very very ramshackle last year but we nevertheless got more tomatoes than usual.

However, in spite of my cherry tomatoes doing really well, my other tomatoes are not. Yes they have flowers, but then the flowers die and nothing happens. Yesterday I suddenly recalled that those massive greenhouses growing tomatoes have people hand pollinating the tomatoes. Because there are no insects. And even though I have to say my little cage is not insect proof, it still must keep out a lot of them. So I thought I should look to see if this was the problem. And indeed it is - well one of the problems. The main one in fact. My heart sank. Have I got to go out there every day and rub each flower against another one - like they do at great expense with vanilla?

Thankfully, it seems I don't. Yes it would help if I had more insects - like bees to do the job for me, but actually the tomatoes are sort of self-pollinating in that each flower has male and female. However, even though they don't necessarily need a bee to take the pollen from one and spread it to another, they do need the vibration of his wings and and of him landing on the flower. Normally the wind will do this. But actually we haven't had much wind of late. Today, for example is very still. So you have to vibrate the plants. And, as with everything, this is where opinions differ.

brush

toothbrush

You can use a brush, you can use an electric toothbrush or you can buy a special custom made implement. But many seem to think it's just enough to vibrate the plants a bit. Well yesterday, or was it the day before, I did have a session of tying them up to the stakes, so there would have been a fair bit of vibration going on there. I mean my hands when I washed them afterwards shed lots of green juice in the water, and smelt deliciously of tomatoes. So I'm guessing a fair bit of pollen would have got spread then. But I haven't been doing that often enough. Apparently you should do it every couple of days - preferably at lunchtime. So this is what I shall do. Give them all a bit of a gentle shake. Not that this really explains why the cherry tomatoes are doing so well. Or perhaps it does, because I put that plant in well before the others and it shot up and had most of its flowers before I covered it all with netting, so maybe most of the flowers had set by then.

It's not the only reason the fruit, or is it the flowers, don't set though. Heat is an enemy. And we've certainly had that.

"In hotter climates, high temperatures can sometimes play havoc with pollination. Hot spells, when daytime temperatures remain above 30ºC (86ºF) and, crucially, nighttime temperatures fail to dip below 24ºC (75ºF), have the undesirable effect of turning pollen sterile. Turns out tomatoes like it hot – but not too hot!" GrowVeg

So is it too late to do anything about this now? I do know that some leaves on my tomato plants were completely burnt and shrivelled after those over 40 days we had recently. And we are over 30 today and tomorrow, but fortunately down to the twenties again for a while. Well no - not too late. I gather you just have to wait for the cool and just keep watering. Which we do.

And finally they need food - and shocking gardener that I am - I have not been feeding them. I even bought some fertiliser to do this but only gave it to them once. So in a minute I'm going to go out there and feed them again. Not sure how often I have to do this, but maybe every couple of weeks will do.

"Once you’ve done all you can to improve conditions, you’ll just have to be patient and wait for Mother Nature to do the rest. Don’t lose heart because the situation is bound to improve. When it does, the tomatoes will come thick and fast, and then you’ll be wondering what to do with them all!" GrowVeg

If only. I'm pretty certain I shall not have so many I won't know what to do with them - like my friend Monika who has masses of everything she plants in her small but enormously productive garden. My sister too I have no doubt. No I have to admit that I'm the world's worst gardener. Not helped by the very awful soil, or lack of soil that we have here, but I can't just blame it on that or the climate. Monika has the same climate after all. No I'm just lazy and I don't have the magic touch. I'm really going to try a bit harder though. Out I go to shake those plants and feed them.