How Do I Get Tomatoes to Bloom in the Greenhouse?

Release bees inside the greenhouse. If the greenhouse is big enough, this may be the quickest and easiest way for your tomato flowers to become pollinated. Most opt for honey bees, if they would like to harvest honey, or bumble bees.

Direct a high powered fan to blow on the tomato plants. Since a single tomato plant flower has both male and female parts, every flower has the ability to pollinate itself. This is not done automatically however. For those who have a greenhouse that is not too large, a fan may be the best way for you to pollinate the flowers. From the time you spot the first tomato flower until the tomato season is over, you need to run the fan multiple times a day for at least 30 minutes or longer each time. The movement caused by the fan, if strong enough, will blow the pollen from the anther to the carpal resulting in a fertilized flower. A tomato will not grow unless the flower is fertilized.

Gently shake the tomato plant or the trellis which the plant is attached to. Shaking the plant causes movement that can lead to the pollen moving into the carpal to fertilize the flower. For greenhouses that do not have bees, and have no power, gardeners usually opt for this option of fertilizing their tomato plants. When making a large trellis system that has multiple tomato plants attached to them, you can gently shake the trellis system to shake multiple plants at the same time. If opting for this cheap and easy way of pollination, you should repeat the shaking multiple times a day from the first day you find a flower until the tomato season is over.

Turn on an electric toothbrush and place the vibrating part of it against the branches of the tomato plant. This is best done when you have only a few tomato plants in your greenhouse and you are counting on every single flower to provide you with a fruit. While this method is the most time intensive, it produces the best results if you take the time to vibrate the stem of every plant that has a flower on it. It is more gentle for the plant than shaking the whole plant, and it will not disturb any tomatoes that have already formed on the branch.