Garden Notes

Years ago, when we lived in an upper flat in Milwaukee, I tried growing tomatoes on the upstairs deck located on the south side of the house. It seemed like the perfect place for tomatoes, sunny most of the day except for a little shade from the curbside tree.

I had a wooden planter built that measured 5 foot long, 14 inches wide and about 14 inches deep. I filled that planter with a bit of sand on the bottom for drainage, added potting soil and planted my tomatoes. I watered faithfully every day and they grew quickly.

I watched those first tomato plants time and time again produce blossoms that lasted a few days, only to dry up and fall off. I could not imagine what was wrong. We had sun, good soil, plenty of water — what was the problem?

Then it occurred to me that I never saw any bees. Not sure if there were truly no bees or if they were just not finding our porch, I decided to step in. Taking a small watercolor brush, I went from flower to flower pollinating the tomato blooms. It worked like a charm! Soon there were a lot of tomatoes ripening beautifully in the sunshine. From that time forward, I have always given the bees a helping hand with the tomatoes.

We now live in a house with a much larger yard and we grow a lot of tomatoes. Some are planted in the ground and some are in pots. I go out every couple of days with my brush and pollinate all of the tomato blossoms I can find. I know we have bees around here, but they are busy and don’t get to every plant. With my help every blossom now turns into a tomato and the crop is always good!

Pollinating tomato blossom with an artist's brush