I bet the fifth dentist has no teeth to floss. Also nice video I stumbled into your videos by accident but they are very educational I'm definitely going to try this next season with some of my heirloom tomatoes next season!
This trick worked perfectly for me! I have some heirloom seeds I was given in Bulgaria that I planted this season in the pacific north west. My first few flowers had a very low pollination rate. When I saw this video I started using my electric toothbrush on the new flowers. I am now getting 90% pollination and fruit set. Thank you!!
I can’t tell you how much we enjoy your vids! You’ve become a household name for us here in Vermont! Thanks for the daily dose of entertainment and brilliant suggestions! We’ve been “getting into it!”👍
I was thinking maybe my neighbours drum and bass music she likes to share with us neighbour's might just come in handy after all then, if the bees don't mind.
Tip: If you don't have a vibrating toothbrush, your phone will work too. You can attach a q tip to your phone using tape or a rubber band, then play a ringtone that has a vibration. (If you have an iPhone you can create your own vibration pattern in the sounds and haptics settings)
Little bathroom water cups with an aquarium air pump (the humming pulse kind) where the hose goes in through the bottom of the cup works great too. It adds the advantage that you're generating a pollen load inside the cup. Just put the cup up around the flours and wiggle it around slowly while the pump runs (use a small pump). It isn't as portable as the toothbrush but you can run it off a 12v battery and a cheap little inverter or a small powerpack that has an inverter. (you can also find DC cell battery air pumps for aquariums that will work).
LOL this has to be a joke? right. It would take 10X as long and still not get more fruit. $5 electric toothbrush and 5 mins a day has worked for me for years. Sounds like something Rube Goldberg would do.
A tomato a day, keeps the tooth brush away! Haha, get it? Cuz if its producing fruit, you dont gotta use the brush! Buh duh tss! I crack myself up lol jk. AMAZING TIP! New to growing tomatoes. And other plants like the spider plant. And i was always flicking the flowers to produce seeds haha
Ah well, as a resourceful self sufficient type you obviously will know that if one trick doesn't work on one, you can try it on another and it might work very well. But, as a female, I suggest you stick to using the tooth brush on the tomatoes, not certain highly sensitive parts of the female anatomy... Got to use implements correctly to get results. Vibrators for teeth might not be such a brilliant idea, either. Too much rattling noise I bed at night, when your partner is trying to sleep...But tomatoes won't mind. Just get up at about 3am if feeling sexually frustrated and unable to sleep and just give the tomato plants a go with the vibrator and watch them bloom next morning, bright and early, in the sunrise...Tell your sleepy head sexually boring partner where you went and what you did, how etc last night. Make them so jealous...
While trying this out my wife accused me of being the only man concerned with the erogenous zones of a plant. Maybe you did this just to laugh at us. ha ha.
I totally did not see that coming. I thought he was going to use the bristles to gently pollinate the flowers like I've heard people doing with qtips. I learned something new!
Where I live in Franklin, Pennsylvania I very rarely see any bees anymore. Some black and white bumble bees. I used to see those little bees, but I haven't seen any of those. People keep using chemicals. My brother in law lives next to us, not real close but uses all that stuff and round up. Sad we are killing all our bugs and useful insects.
Yes unfortunately chemicals don't discriminate between good and bad bugs so bees are often a big casualty. We can all do our little bit though. Cheers :)
I live in Corry, PA. This year we noticed a bit more than we have in previous years. Which is a good thing. Be sure to plant plants that attract pollinators and leave some clove for the bees in your yard as it grows. We have a couple of neighbors doing the same with the chemicals,but found that we can still attract them from elsewhere. We also heard that there isn't enough plants attracting the bees either while they fly around to land on and rest in.
@@TracyR4 I did plant lots of flowers and we do have clover in the grass. I did see a few more bees this summer than ever. My Bil had nose cancer from smoking and never quit smoking. He is a bullhead. He is 76 or so now.
Just watched the Australian Broadcasting Commission Gardening show that had a segment about moths explaining their usefulness. They are night pollinators!! and account for a large percentage of pollination. Unfortunately many people use those electric bug zappers that kill everything.
Walgreens has their own brand for about $9.00 I'm sure Amazon can get you a sim ilar price one. It works briliantly, you can see the pollen fly out of the plant. PS Use it on pepper plants as well, same flower structure.
I usually tape one of the cheap battery operated toothbrushs on the end of a long stick so I can touch the top of flowers that are out of my reach, it is the only way I have been able to get tomatoes in years! It really helps when you have those 15-20 foot tall tomatoes running up single stem strings, haha
I just tap the tomato cage. Shakes the whole plant. Usually happens just by working in the garden. We have bees and birds that work ours. The birds eat caterpillars, bees work flowers. Plants get jostled by birds, too. We always get loads of tomatoes.
This is really cool! I recently started a bunch of tomato plants by accident. I tossed some food scraps with tomato seeds into my compost pot on the balcony and forgot about it for a few days. Within weeks I have 2ft tall tomato plants so I have been watering and taking care of them. I'll have to try this out!
I have been binge watching and I’ve started my own veggie garden. I live in a city in the uk 🇬🇧 so my garden is tiny and only have 1 small raised bed. But I’m so excited to see it grow 🥰
G'day Mark. Yonks ago I watched a video where a bloke actually smacked his tomato plants with a rolled up newspaper. He said they always set well and he had beautifully full plants. I reckon just tickling would work fine. Thanks for sharing.
I always love seeing a notification that you have put a video up. You are so informative and knowledgeable, and you do it in a way that is fun and enjoyable. It is obvious that you love what you are doing in your garden. Often people who are providing information about sustainability and self-sufficiency are too serious, and forget that you need to add joy and fun into the mix. You do an amazing job!! Cheers!
and you can cover multiple tomato plants is a very short amount of time, just a slight touch on the top of the flower and you are done, if you can get the sun behind the flower you can see the pollen quickly drop down to the stamen, very quick and easy
Thank you! I am a dental hygienist so I found this really amusing....and of course I have several electric toothbrushes so I am prepared to use this method!
Unless it's a cold hardy or heat resistant tomato variety, typically tomatoes have an ideal temperature for fruit setting, around 55 to 80*F (12 to 26*C) night time temperature, when it's out of this range there will be blossom drops and immature fruits. I don't bother with manual pollination except for indoor, although you can skip this too if you run a standing fan at the plants.
hi Mark Love the Videos, We live just up the road from you on the sunny coast. i have been looking at homesteading videos from the US, and am soooooo happy to find yours!!!!!!! I am planing on starting raised garden beds/ growing our own vegs & chickens. do I start a composting pile first or just place the raised beds as I get them? I need to clear some garden beds for the raised beds to go in to. thanks heaps NGM
@@carlosferegrino290 Do it everyday to any open flowers (it only take 5mins to do a dozen plants you only hold on each branch for a few seconds). A fan would be random and could blow pollen away, you want it to drop straight down, this is treating each bud. As he stated and this has been proven, the buzzing mimics bee's and causes the plant to drop pollen. I've been using this for several years and get 90% fruit from open flowers.
I've been using this trick since the first flowers appeared, it 100% works. Last year the pollinators were late and I missed out on a lot of tomatoes. This year every flower has set on both my chillies and tomatoes. Neighbours must think I'm mad though 🤣 Thank you!
One of the best pollinator-attracting plants I use (Newport, UK) is 'Borrage'! Every year I sit out enjoying the constant buzz of bees etc in amongst the self-seeding Borrage with its gorgeous blue flowers that just keep opening (along with my pink foxgloves) while waiting for my giant sunflowers to open (first one did yesterday... yippee). Borrage flowers taste lovely on salads or even alone and the leaves, while spikey, taste and smell like cucumber. Keep up the good work Mark.
@@carlosferegrino290 I'll add my 2-cents here if you don't mind... all I do to help pollinate my tomatoes is repeatedly tap the stems with my first and second fingers while wiggling them quickly (pretend they're little legs and you're jiggling those fingers like they were running!... sorry for the analogy but I'd rather risk being patronising than being unclear... words are hard to get get exact meaning across sometimes)... the vibrations make the flowers jiggle very rapidly and this shakes pollen loose. Takes a couple of seconds. I do this most times I'm near to them while either watering or inspecting or just walking past (maybe once every one or two days?). Works like a charm.
I just bought a new electric toothbrush , $120 , going to have to wait until the first replaceable head wears out before it gets used in the garden :-D
great a cheap and easy way to pollinate my tomatoes *checks price of electric toothbrush* NOPE great knowing there are fruit and veg out there with better dental hygiene than me.
I bought a cheap kids electric toothbrush at a discount store. It requires 1 AA battery. I've been using it for a couple of months and it is working great for my tomatoes.
Thanks so much!! Very helpful demo. I'm thinking of planting a cutting from our prolific basil plant into a large pot, then put it on a platform with wheels. That way I can wheel it around the garden beds to where we want to draw our bees!
I knew there had to be a real use for electric tooth brushes... I was just waiting to discover it. Glad I didn't throw it out when I replaced it with a proper traditional manual one for my own teeth. Electric one is for tomatoes... Actually, my orange tree was loaded with blossoms but no oranges resulted last year. I then realised my very tidy urban raised neighbour had ripped out a whole lot of old pelargonium flower plants he said looked "messy" and "caused insects",which attracted swarms of honey bees that used to pollinate the orange a d other fruit trees and tomatoes. "How come no fruit or tomatoes in the garden?" he complained. "You wrecked it all and mucked up the food production system because you wanted everything city style neat and clean, mate, so you'll have to starve now because you caused the bees to starve when you ripped up those pelargonium flowers they loved to feast on and then do work p9llinati g our fruit and tomato and veggies in the garden. He scratched his head and then said "Right. So the bees feed off the flowers and we feed off the fruit trees and tomatoes they pollinate...I get it now... " he relied. "Good boy! Now go get a nice soft little artist paint brush and go hand paint every little veggie and fruit tree blossom if you want food... " I told him, handing him a few of my artist and make up brushes I bought not for stupid things, like applying ladies' face make up but to pollinate plants with. "You are nuts! There's hundreds of blossoms and I can't reach them all, even if I climb the tree and they all keep falling off... " he complained. "Which is why I told you to leave them bloody pelargonium a alone, to let the bees do the job you are incapable of doing... But you thought you knew everything because you're from the city and can use a mobile phone... But the bees outsmarted you so now you'll have to simply starve because you gambled all your welfare cheque on the POKIES, you ripped up nature's food source, the pelargonium flower bush the bees needed to eat from, so now there's no food for you because you can't afford the rip off supermarket fruit and veg prices they charge. And, unlike the source you just wrecked, when you ripped up the untidy looking pelargonium flower plants, the supermarket crap produce is old, genetically modified, full of artificial growth hormones and pesticides to make it look good so dumb people buy it. But it is tasteless. Keep out of my garden space and don't touch my pelargoniums or my fruits and veggies I get because I don't rip up the countryside, and pave it all in concrete until it looks as barren and ugly and dehumanised and unnatural as the city. Priorities, man! Got to get your HUMAN priorities straight. Abundant real, natural food supply more important than neatly paved environment, cutting down forests to create firebreaks sometimes necessary. Killing out of controlnumbers of wild animals birds sometimes necessary if they threaten our own human survival eg cockatoos that can destroy a grain crop in no time.
PRO TIP for people who want to use this technique but save some time and money. Every video suggests using paint brushes or q-tips or tooth brushes to get the job done and I'm here to tell you that's not needed. Go outside and find a piece of grass that's grown a bit, observe the stem and you should see lots of short hairs on the stem. The hair on grass stems works wonderfully for hand pollination and you'll notice the hairs perform very similar to the hairs on a honeybee. So you simply get to go out to your squash plant, pluck a piece of grass, pollinate, and then chuck the piece of grass right back on the ground and walah you've saved yourself time and money.
The cheap battery operated toothbrushes, also pollinate without touching the plant so you are less apt to damage or risk damaging the stem letting in disease. Just barely touch the top of the flower its self, best early in the morning
You're the man Mark. First time gardener and you've quickly become my go-to for tips and instruction. Cheers.
Thank you Sean! Cheers mate :)
Same here Mark
Hey mark
Same
Four out of five dentists recommend flossing in between harvestings. ;)
LOL very good advice! :)
@@Selfsufficientme 😜
I bet the fifth dentist has no teeth to floss. Also nice video I stumbled into your videos by accident but they are very educational I'm definitely going to try this next season with some of my heirloom tomatoes next season!
John is a dentist so we cant show his cat face on TV.
@@Selfsufficientme if I plant tomato in NSW now can I grow a strong stem to be ready for the season?
This trick worked perfectly for me! I have some heirloom seeds I was given in Bulgaria that I planted this season in the pacific north west. My first few flowers had a very low pollination rate. When I saw this video I started using my electric toothbrush on the new flowers. I am now getting 90% pollination and fruit set. Thank you!!
Bulgarian tomatoes best tomatoes 🤛
Nevhr can’t wait for my Bulgarian Pinks! Best 🍅 in the world.
@@Vepoch I know! I hope you have a great harvest, ours are starting to ripen! Enjoy!
How often to you do the toothbrush hand pollination during the flower phase? Thanks!
Karen Page just once per flower. Every time I see a new flower I hit it with the tooth brush then don’t need to do it again.
I can’t tell you how much we enjoy your vids! You’ve become a household name for us here in Vermont!
Thanks for the daily dose of entertainment and brilliant suggestions!
We’ve been “getting into it!”👍
I would have never thought of this. Wow what a great idea
I was thinking maybe my neighbours drum and bass music she likes to share with us neighbour's might just come in handy after all then, if the bees don't mind.
Not sure about the cavities, but makes those talks with the tomatoes much more pleasant.
You make gardening tips,so fun.
Tip: If you don't have a vibrating toothbrush, your phone will work too. You can attach a q tip to your phone using tape or a rubber band, then play a ringtone that has a vibration. (If you have an iPhone you can create your own vibration pattern in the sounds and haptics settings)
Very funny has a horticulturist I was very very entertained today , great video very funny and educational 👏👏👏👍🐸🇫🇷🇮🇪 well done
Can you do a video of what else you grow in our SE QLD winter please?
Little bathroom water cups with an aquarium air pump (the humming pulse kind) where the hose goes in through the bottom of the cup works great too. It adds the advantage that you're generating a pollen load inside the cup. Just put the cup up around the flours and wiggle it around slowly while the pump runs (use a small pump). It isn't as portable as the toothbrush but you can run it off a 12v battery and a cheap little inverter or a small powerpack that has an inverter. (you can also find DC cell battery air pumps for aquariums that will work).
LOL this has to be a joke? right. It would take 10X as long and still not get more fruit. $5 electric toothbrush and 5 mins a day has worked for me for years. Sounds like something Rube Goldberg would do.
Giving each blossom a couple flicks with your fingers when you're out watering or pruning works just as well and not as clunky and time-consuming.
I don't know if you bee keep at all but you should! Your garden,you, and the bees would benefit well💛🌼🐝 (:
"sneak a family members tooth brush !!... haha
Just bought an electric toothbrush specially for my tomato plants. My mum said I treat them better than my own teeth! 🤣🤣
Can we do it to cucumbers and squashes as well ?
Does the toothbrush method also work on other fruit bearing plants?
The Polinator!
That's a new one on me. I don't have an electric. Would floss work? ;-) Thanks for the tip :-D
A tomato a day, keeps the tooth brush away! Haha, get it? Cuz if its producing fruit, you dont gotta use the brush! Buh duh tss! I crack myself up lol jk. AMAZING TIP! New to growing tomatoes. And other plants like the spider plant. And i was always flicking the flowers to produce seeds haha
I noticed you used tie straps for the tamaters. Why didn't you use dental floss?
Oral "Bee" Substitute.
YOU WIN !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gold.....
HAHAHAHA!!!!
That's a beauty! Cheers :)
I see what you did there
It looks a bit weird ha ha. Don't know what my neighbors would think if they see me brushing my tomatoes.
Yes ..there are special institutions for people like that 🤪 lol
I speak to mine...😜
I can’t WAIT for my neighbours to see me electric tooth brushing my tomato plants! They already think I’m a nutter anyways
@@derekcox6531 Wave a packet of floss in the air. They'll really freak out!😜
Hahaha 😆 😂 🤣 FUNNY! 😁
I used another type of vibrating device I found in the bedroom to do this... now I'm divorced.
You were supposed to use it on the tomato's Frank...!
Ah well, as a resourceful self sufficient type you obviously will know that if one trick doesn't work on one, you can try it on another and it might work very well. But, as a female, I suggest you stick to using the tooth brush on the tomatoes, not certain highly sensitive parts of the female anatomy... Got to use implements correctly to get results. Vibrators for teeth might not be such a brilliant idea, either. Too much rattling noise I bed at night, when your partner is trying to sleep...But tomatoes won't mind. Just get up at about 3am if feeling sexually frustrated and unable to sleep and just give the tomato plants a go with the vibrator and watch them bloom next morning, bright and early, in the sunrise...Tell your sleepy head sexually boring partner where you went and what you did, how etc last night. Make them so jealous...
😂😂😂😂😂
Ha ha ha!!!
OMG I laughed out loud ...Hard belly laugh
While trying this out my wife accused me of being the only man concerned with the erogenous zones of a plant. Maybe you did this just to laugh at us. ha ha.
A simple flick will do. I tease my tomatoes grown indoors by flicking each flower, not too hard, but hard enough for them to feel it. .
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Good one
I totally did not see that coming. I thought he was going to use the bristles to gently pollinate the flowers like I've heard people doing with qtips. I learned something new!
Hahaha 😂😂😂😂 Me Too haaaa
😂😂😂 funny. I like it when you pretend to get someones toothbrush. 🤣
Who's Pretending.?
The evidence is good
Frustrated tomatoes meet vibrators. I am sure that they are very happy now.
Great tip 😊
Just the tip
Like some old gardener once said, "Spank your tomatoes good!"
You failed to mention the best brand of tooth paste for healthy tomatoes 🤷🏽♂️🤣
Best Gardener on YT.
I set my phone to vibrate and strapped it to my plant now I just call it every morning......
🤣
Genius.. 👍🏻
LMAOOO
Late comment but Big brain
USL Services Excellent, yours is the best comment so far.
Oral "bee" substitute is my favorite . Love your channel!!!
vibee
So, if you do something wrong here then it's acci-dental?
“How you doin’..?” 😏
hahah 🤣🤣
Lol
Lucy S vibrating!
Pls never stop uploading
I thought I was the only one who thought of using my electric toothbrush to vibrate the pollen from male to female parts in the “perfect” flower!
Where I live in Franklin, Pennsylvania I very rarely see any bees anymore. Some black and white bumble bees. I used to see those little bees, but I haven't seen any of those. People keep using chemicals. My brother in law lives next to us, not real close but uses all that stuff and round up. Sad we are killing all our bugs and useful insects.
Yes unfortunately chemicals don't discriminate between good and bad bugs so bees are often a big casualty. We can all do our little bit though. Cheers :)
I live in Corry, PA. This year we noticed a bit more than we have in previous years. Which is a good thing. Be sure to plant plants that attract pollinators and leave some clove for the bees in your yard as it grows. We have a couple of neighbors doing the same with the chemicals,but found that we can still attract them from elsewhere. We also heard that there isn't enough plants attracting the bees either while they fly around to land on and rest in.
@@TracyR4 I did plant lots of flowers and we do have clover in the grass. I did see a few more bees this summer than ever. My Bil had nose cancer from smoking and never quit smoking. He is a bullhead. He is 76 or so now.
Using chemical should be against the law.....mother's nature's law. Your brother in-law isn't the brightest light bulb.
Just watched the Australian Broadcasting Commission Gardening show that had a segment about moths explaining their usefulness. They are night pollinators!! and account for a large percentage of pollination. Unfortunately many people use those electric bug zappers that kill everything.
😂😂 I flick mine, can't think of any cavity jokes, vibrations though...best left alone.
yeah i give my tomatoes and peppers a little finger drum solo haha
For best results gently put the center of bristle ends directly up into the flower. I only do the opened and wanting flowers.
If my family caught me doing this it would be off to the funny farm...😂😂
I flick mine. The tomato plants can’t have my $80 toothbrush 😄
just change the end o the toothbrush for a used one. Or dont use the end at all. Still going to vibrate.
Walgreens has their own brand for about $9.00 I'm sure Amazon can get you a sim ilar price one. It works briliantly, you can see the pollen fly out of the plant. PS Use it on pepper plants as well, same flower structure.
80 DOLLARS SCUSE ME FOR A DAMN TOOTH BRUSH THATS LIKE A LUXURY MEAL OR LIKE THE BEST KEYBOARD AND MOUSE
Reminds me of the tomato patch down by by the old ROOT canal.Right next to the CAVITY of blackberrys,in miss flosse's backyard!
You know how Basil grows well with tomatoes? This brings a whole new meaning to the name 'Basil Brush'. Boom boom.
Hahaha
@@coolwater55 lol..
Make sure that you hit your tomatoes "T Spot"!! lol
This honestly needs more likes. xdxdxdd
Found your channel in the last week and half.. Absolutely hooked on your content and knowledge. Very likable guy! Keep the content flowing!!!!
This channel is AWESOME !!!!!!!!!
Mark's the greatest, huh?
So technically any personal vibrating device would work?😋
Hahahahaha
Natasha Nagy oh my gosh I think I know what you're thinking
"You gotta try these tomatoes, they're ORGASMICALLY delicious" 😄 😄 😄
Not yourvPersonel Massager By God What were you Thinking Natasha?
Redtail, I like to keep the neighbours on their toes...so to speak
absolutely loving the vids. Keep it up mate big aspirations to have a crop like yours someday
I know you had a humoristic side in you. Loved the clip when you sniked in the bathroom and took the toothbrusch 😂 Great tip BTW 🙂
I just stole my daughter's electric toothbrush and tried it on mine.
My dad used to use a small feather or a child's paintbrush to pollenate the flowers of tomatoes and cucumbers
Did it work well?
I use a small paintbrush as well. When he got the toothbrush, I thought he was going to shake the plant from the base or something.
I usually tape one of the cheap battery operated toothbrushs on the end of a long stick so I can touch the top of flowers that are out of my reach, it is the only way I have been able to get tomatoes in years! It really helps when you have those 15-20 foot tall tomatoes running up single stem strings, haha
Thyme to floss too? jk
😁
Good one! :)
I just tap the tomato cage. Shakes the whole plant. Usually happens just by working in the garden. We have bees and birds that work ours. The birds eat caterpillars, bees work flowers. Plants get jostled by birds, too. We always get loads of tomatoes.
This video came at the perfect time for me. Think I'll use my beard trimmer for lack of electric toothbrush. Thanks.
You are always so cheery! You had me laughing so hard when you stole the toothbrush!
This is really cool! I recently started a bunch of tomato plants by accident. I tossed some food scraps with tomato seeds into my compost pot on the balcony and forgot about it for a few days. Within weeks I have 2ft tall tomato plants so I have been watering and taking care of them. I'll have to try this out!
Oh wow that's a nice little surprise 😄 I struggle to keep anything growing
I did the same and ended up with a tomato plant which has just opened the flowers today after a few weeks! I hope it will fruit.
Well I had a few but kept the 2 biggest plants. How long before it fruits once the flower has blossomed?
I have been binge watching and I’ve started my own veggie garden. I live in a city in the uk 🇬🇧 so my garden is tiny and only have 1 small raised bed. But I’m so excited to see it grow 🥰
G'day Mark. Yonks ago I watched a video where a bloke actually smacked his tomato plants with a rolled up newspaper. He said they always set well and he had beautifully full plants. I reckon just tickling would work fine. Thanks for sharing.
LOL Helen, smacking tomato plants - never heard that one but if it works why not! Cheers :)
Guess it depends on the personal inclinations of the plant lol
I wonder if Bunnings would sell a Tomato and Cucumber Tooth brush so I don't have to buy a Procter and Gamble.
Bee prepared to pay double for it. The big green shed is not always cheap
Thanks for the info.. your the Steve Irwin of the plant kingdom.. 😀
Best done in the moaning.
Good tip thanks! :)
I always love seeing a notification that you have put a video up. You are so informative and knowledgeable, and you do it in a way that is fun and enjoyable. It is obvious that you love what you are doing in your garden. Often people who are providing information about sustainability and self-sufficiency are too serious, and forget that you need to add joy and fun into the mix. You do an amazing job!! Cheers!
You're too cute, thank you...😊💕
and you can cover multiple tomato plants is a very short amount of time, just a slight touch on the top of the flower and you are done, if you can get the sun behind the flower you can see the pollen quickly drop down to the stamen, very quick and easy
Thank you! I am a dental hygienist so I found this really amusing....and of course I have several electric toothbrushes so I am prepared to use this method!
I don't have an electric teethbrush but I do have something else to use on them that vibrates 😎😈
Akariel that’s a bit naughty
@@michaelwalsh9881 You should have seen the look on my neighbors faces this morning then.
I always manually polenate my zuchinis. Feels a little sexy but works
Bruh
Unless it's a cold hardy or heat resistant tomato variety, typically tomatoes have an ideal temperature for fruit setting, around 55 to 80*F (12 to 26*C) night time temperature, when it's out of this range there will be blossom drops and immature fruits.
I don't bother with manual pollination except for indoor, although you can skip this too if you run a standing fan at the plants.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experience! Cheers :)
As usual your video was A W E S O M E
God bless you and yours
LOL! I cracked up at, “How are you doing?”, and sneaking a family member’s toothbrush out to the garden.
hi Mark Love the Videos, We live just up the road from you on the sunny coast. i have been looking at homesteading videos from the US, and am soooooo happy to find yours!!!!!!!
I am planing on starting raised garden beds/ growing our own vegs & chickens. do I start a composting pile first or just place the raised beds as I get them? I need to clear some garden beds for the raised beds to go in to. thanks heaps NGM
I've been doing this for my tomatoes and my peppers this year. The set rate for both has been great!
How many times in a week - month do you pollinate tomatoes with a toothbrush? Why you don't just use a fan to create wind and make pollination?
@@carlosferegrino290 Do it everyday to any open flowers (it only take 5mins to do a dozen plants you only hold on each branch for a few seconds). A fan would be random and could blow pollen away, you want it to drop straight down, this is treating each bud. As he stated and this has been proven, the buzzing mimics bee's and causes the plant to drop pollen. I've been using this for several years and get 90% fruit from open flowers.
I've been using this trick since the first flowers appeared, it 100% works. Last year the pollinators were late and I missed out on a lot of tomatoes. This year every flower has set on both my chillies and tomatoes. Neighbours must think I'm mad though 🤣 Thank you!
One of the best pollinator-attracting plants I use (Newport, UK) is 'Borrage'! Every year I sit out enjoying the constant buzz of bees etc in amongst the self-seeding Borrage with its gorgeous blue flowers that just keep opening (along with my pink foxgloves) while waiting for my giant sunflowers to open (first one did yesterday... yippee).
Borrage flowers taste lovely on salads or even alone and the leaves, while spikey, taste and smell like cucumber.
Keep up the good work Mark.
I have grown borrage before and I agree it's a great plant - I should grow more of it! Cheers :)
How many times in a week - month do you pollinate tomatoes with a toothbrush? Why you don't just use a fan to create wind and make pollination?
@@carlosferegrino290 I'll add my 2-cents here if you don't mind... all I do to help pollinate my tomatoes is repeatedly tap the stems with my first and second fingers while wiggling them quickly (pretend they're little legs and you're jiggling those fingers like they were running!... sorry for the analogy but I'd rather risk being patronising than being unclear... words are hard to get get exact meaning across sometimes)... the vibrations make the flowers jiggle very rapidly and this shakes pollen loose. Takes a couple of seconds.
I do this most times I'm near to them while either watering or inspecting or just walking past (maybe once every one or two days?). Works like a charm.
Checks time stamp to make sure this didn't come out on April 1st (I've been known to 🐝 gullible). I can't wait to try this. 👍
Ahaha :D I was feeling a bit down this morning but your toothbrush skit there has brightened my day. Thank you, sir! :D
I just bought a new electric toothbrush , $120 , going to have to wait until the first replaceable head wears out before it gets used in the garden :-D
Typical kids spinbrush costs about 6 bux at the local pharmacy
Pop it inside a plastic bag or wrap in cling film?
"How"re you doin" you should check the plant out to see if it responded with more fruit! 😊
great a cheap and easy way to pollinate my tomatoes *checks price of electric toothbrush* NOPE
great knowing there are fruit and veg out there with better dental hygiene than me.
I bought a cheap kids electric toothbrush at a discount store. It requires 1 AA battery. I've been using it for a couple of months and it is working great for my tomatoes.
@@themacduckies Great tip! Cheers :)
World's finest plaqueless tomatoes
Thanks so much!! Very helpful demo. I'm thinking of planting a cutting from our prolific basil plant into a large pot, then put it on a platform with wheels. That way I can wheel it around the garden beds to where we want to draw our bees!
My thai basil died :(
I swear I'm gonna try growing it again.
Great trick. Thanks for sharing! 💚
Well, at least I brushed up on my horticulture and gardening alt. techniques!
"I'm just doing it cuz its fun."....that's what she said!
Hi..... Mark, thank you for sharing your video homestead chicken farmer garden 👋 bye 👋 bye 👋 bye 👋 👕🐔🐓🐥🐕🐈🌱🐴🌶🌽🍍🍅🍈🍌🍒🍓🍅🍎🍑🎥👍👍👍
This is brilliant. I am definitely doing this. I flick to hard with my fingers. Thank you so much for sharing.
I knew there had to be a real use for electric tooth brushes... I was just waiting to discover it. Glad I didn't throw it out when I replaced it with a proper traditional manual one for my own teeth. Electric one is for tomatoes... Actually, my orange tree was loaded with blossoms but no oranges resulted last year. I then realised my very tidy urban raised neighbour had ripped out a whole lot of old pelargonium flower plants he said looked "messy" and "caused insects",which attracted swarms of honey bees that used to pollinate the orange a d other fruit trees and tomatoes. "How come no fruit or tomatoes in the garden?" he complained. "You wrecked it all and mucked up the food production system because you wanted everything city style neat and clean, mate, so you'll have to starve now because you caused the bees to starve when you ripped up those pelargonium flowers they loved to feast on and then do work p9llinati g our fruit and tomato and veggies in the garden. He scratched his head and then said "Right. So the bees feed off the flowers and we feed off the fruit trees and tomatoes they pollinate...I get it now... " he relied. "Good boy! Now go get a nice soft little artist paint brush and go hand paint every little veggie and fruit tree blossom if you want food... " I told him, handing him a few of my artist and make up brushes I bought not for stupid things, like applying ladies' face make up but to pollinate plants with. "You are nuts! There's hundreds of blossoms and I can't reach them all, even if I climb the tree and they all keep falling off... " he complained. "Which is why I told you to leave them bloody pelargonium a alone, to let the bees do the job you are incapable of doing... But you thought you knew everything because you're from the city and can use a mobile phone... But the bees outsmarted you so now you'll have to simply starve because you gambled all your welfare cheque on the POKIES, you ripped up nature's food source, the pelargonium flower bush the bees needed to eat from, so now there's no food for you because you can't afford the rip off supermarket fruit and veg prices they charge. And, unlike the source you just wrecked, when you ripped up the untidy looking pelargonium flower plants, the supermarket crap produce is old, genetically modified, full of artificial growth hormones and pesticides to make it look good so dumb people buy it. But it is tasteless. Keep out of my garden space and don't touch my pelargoniums or my fruits and veggies I get because I don't rip up the countryside, and pave it all in concrete until it looks as barren and ugly and dehumanised and unnatural as the city. Priorities, man! Got to get your HUMAN priorities straight. Abundant real, natural food supply more important than neatly paved environment, cutting down forests to create firebreaks sometimes necessary. Killing out of controlnumbers of wild animals birds sometimes necessary if they threaten our own human survival eg cockatoos that can destroy a grain crop in no time.
I'm going to do this today! I've been flicking, but I think this will be better! Thanks, as always! :D
I love
PRO TIP for people who want to use this technique but save some time and money. Every video suggests using paint brushes or q-tips or tooth brushes to get the job done and I'm here to tell you that's not needed. Go outside and find a piece of grass that's grown a bit, observe the stem and you should see lots of short hairs on the stem. The hair on grass stems works wonderfully for hand pollination and you'll notice the hairs perform very similar to the hairs on a honeybee. So you simply get to go out to your squash plant, pluck a piece of grass, pollinate, and then chuck the piece of grass right back on the ground and walah you've saved yourself time and money.
Great way to recycle old electric toothbrushes. I have been trying to find a use for them for years.
Could I use my wife’s vibrator, she doesn’t own a toothbrush
bwuhahahahaa!!!!
I Will use use it from my little brother hi have a electric one😋
I wonder if you could use a "neck massager" to get the same effect. :) Or maybe that would be a great way to stimulate the zucchini lol...
The cheap battery operated toothbrushes, also pollinate without touching the plant so you are less apt to damage or risk damaging the stem letting in disease.
Just barely touch the top of the flower its self, best early in the morning
I’m so glad you didn’t call this a “hack”!
I already tie my tomato with rope so I guess I'm kinky enough to try this method
I'm going to try it. Thank you for the different tips. 🌸🌸🌸
M-momma said the tomatoes aren't fruiting because they've got so many flowers but no toothbrush Haha
all I can think of is shiny tomatoes and a tomato a day ... lol