Reuse An Old Electric Toothbrush For Thriving Tomato Plants All Summer Long

Though electric toothbrushes are most commonly used for oral hygiene, these vibrating tools can make a big impact in your garden. When learning how to grow tomatoes, you might not realize that these plants sometimes need help with pollination. It might seem counterintuitive to bring your electric toothbrush into the garden, but these oral hygiene tools can also function as manual pollinators. In order to produce big, delicious tomatoes all summer long, the flowers on your plant need to be pollinated. If you're growing tomatoes in a greenhouse or bees aren't frequenting your space, hand-pollination is a great way to ensure a good harvest. Electric toothbrushes make this practice even more efficient by vibrating the flowers to dislodge pollen.

An electric toothbrush makes mechanical pollination more cost-effective and could work as well as other methods. A 2020 study by BMC Ecology tested the pollination capabilities of tuning forks, which were normally used to pollinate plants for breeding or research, against electric toothbrushes on tomato plants. It was found that electric toothbrushes were just as effective for artificial pollination as tuning forks, though much less expensive. Though electric pollinator devices can be found at some garden stores or online, a toothbrush is the more economical option for helping your plants. On Amazon, a vibrating plant pollinator tool can cost over $25. On the other hand, an inexpensive electric toothbrush is between $4 and $7. Just like the designated tools, a battery-powered toothbrush will gently jostle your tomato flowers.

When the flowers of tomato plants aren't properly pollinated, you'll end up with less fruit or tomatoes with weird shapes. Taking pollination into your own hands could be the secret for better tomatoes if you've struggled to produce beautiful, delicious fruit. For this simple hack, all you'll need to do is hold the buzzing toothbrush near the flowers of your tomato plant. Position the head of the toothbrush behind the flower. It doesn't matter whether the vibrating bristles face toward or away from the plant. Make sure not to touch the front of the delicate flowers, but just around them and behind them to move around the pollen. You can also place the brush on the stems supporting the small flowers. The movement of the toothbrush will lightly shake the flower, similar to the motion it experiences from bees' buzzing wings.

Not only is this hack good for your plants, but it's a unique way to recycle electric toothbrushes that you've stopped using. To ensure that every flower on all of your tomato plants is being pollinated, you might need to check on them fairly often. Try stimulating the plant with the toothbrush every other day. This way, when a new flower opens up, you'll be sure it gets pollinated too. The previously mentioned study claimed that the strength of the vibration didn't change how effectively the plants were pollinated, but the frequency and the amount of time spent vibrating the plant did.