Pollination: helping your flowers set fruit

A flower that is not pollinated does not make fruit. Many of our crops need help in Qatar, where walled villa gardens, rooftops and balconies often have few insects.

Three ways pollination happens

• Natural pollinators (bees, hoverflies, butterflies): cucumber, zucchini, pumpkin, watermelon, muskmelon, fava.
• Wind: corn, spinach, beetroot, and it helps tomato by shaking the flowers.
• Self-pollination: okra, beans, pepper, eggplant — which often benefit from a gentle shake.

Attracting pollinators

• Let herbs flower: coriander, dill, basil, mint and fenugreek flowers are very attractive.
• Plant flowers near the beds, and put out a shallow dish of water with pebbles for them to drink from.
• Do not spray neem, soap or anything else while flowers are open. Spray at dusk, when the insects have settled.

Hand pollination

Cucumber, zucchini, pumpkin, melon and watermelon have separate male and female flowers. The female is the one with a tiny fruit behind it. In the morning, pick a freshly opened male flower, strip its petals and dab its centre onto the centre of every open female flower.

Bottle gourd is the exception: its flowers open in the evening, so pollinate at dusk rather than in the morning.

For tomato, eggplant and pepper, tap or gently shake the flower truss around late morning when the pollen is dry, or touch the flower stem for a second with an electric toothbrush.

Date palm hand-pollination, in February–March, is covered on its own crop page.

Signs it failed

Flowers dropping, small fruit yellowing and falling (the cucurbits), and misshapen fruit (cucumber, melon). Note that above about 35 °C the pollen goes sterile whatever you do — that has nothing to do with insects.