Hands On: Pinching and Hand-Pollinating for a Bumper Crop

The difference between a good garden and a great one may be as simple as nipping plant tips and manual pollination

If there are bees and butterflies in your neighborhood, but they’re not coming to your garden, invite them over with local wildflowers.FrentaN/Shutterstock

Ever wonder why one garden is extremely lush, while the one next door in the same ecosystem is struggling along? And particularly when both get the same hours of sun and are appropriately watered and fertilized? As with anything else in life, it comes down to attention to detail.

Pinching—which can be done with garden shears, but got its name from gardeners who used their thumb and forefinger to nip off soft growth tips—leads to bushier growth and ultimately a better harvest.

Hand-pollinating ensures that female flowers are properly fertilized so they can develop fruit, something which is becoming more necessary due to the reduction in the populations of bees and other pollinators. Even if you have bees, if you notice that one particular zucchini or melon plant isn’t turning flowers into fruit, step in with your paintbrush (we’ll get to that in a minute).

Pinching, or tipping, encourages branching in young plants by removing the end of a plant or branch just above a node.FotoHelin/Shutterstock

Proper Pinches

Pinching (sometimes called “tipping”) encourages branching in young plants by removing the end of a plant or branch just above a node—the bulge on the stem where leaves connect.

Be careful not to damage the node while pinching, because it is where the two new shoots will emerge. Typically, just the last set or two leaves are removed, although a particularly leggy specimen can be trimmed back further. This is particularly apt when you’re dealing with basil or mint and can eat the excess. In fact, if you’re regularly harvesting herbs such as basil, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, tarragon, thyme, and lavender, you’re already successfully pinching.

While bushy plants are normally a good thing, tomatoes and other plants that form side shoots can quickly get too bushy. This reduces proper airflow, can lead to pests and disease, and, perhaps most importantly, encourages the plant to focus on growing greenery instead of tomatoes. The solution is to judiciously pinch a few side shoots here and there as they bud.

To Pinch or Not to Pinch

Not every plant will benefit from pinching, not even all tomatoes. Indeterminate varieties, which continue to grow until the first frost, can be tipped to keep the plant to a manageable size and, as mentioned, encourage it to focus on fruit and not greenery. Determinate tomatoes—typically shorter varieties that produce most of their crop at the same time—should not be pruned unless absolutely necessary, as doing so risks losing potential fruit.

Peppers love to be pinched and have been known to produce twice as much fruit if tipped early on, including the first group of buds (aka “disbudding”) to encourage even more flowers.

You may think that a vine like cucumbers should not be pinched, but do so if they’re running wild. Another option is to remove the lower stems of a cuke running up a trellis to allow it to focus on the growth tip (which you don’t pinch in this case). Never pinch bush cucumbers.

Gourds will take over and are normally pinched when they are around 10 feet long; this causes side branches, where the female flowers and resulting crop form.

Summer squash and zucchini don’t need to be tipped, but some leaves should be pinched off to allow for airflow and to help prevent diseases such as powdery mildew.

Peas are often pinched to help them stay short and more productive. Similarly, pole beans are usually pinched when they reach the top of their support to increase pod production.

A fun experiment is to pinch one plant and leave another alone. See which one does better to establish your own technique.

Pinching vegetable plants, such as peppers, cucumbers, gourds, peas, and pole beans, will encourage them to grow more produce.Kingarion/Shutterstock

Pollination Solutions

Your plants are growing beautifully but you’re not getting any veggies? Hand pollination is the simple act of taking pollen from a male flower and applying it to a female flower. Self-fertile hermaphrodites, such as tomatoes, pepper, eggplant, and green beans, are the easiest. Simply shake the flowers as the buzzing of a passing bee or butterfly would.

For plants with separate male and female flowers (cucumbers, squash, melons, and pumpkins to name a few), there are two choices. Take a small paintbrush, lift the pollen from a male flower, and gently apply it to a female flower, adding more pollen to the brush regularly. A second option is to take the male flower off the plant, remove its petals, and apply them to the female flower directly.

If there are bees and butterflies in your neighborhood, but they’re not coming to your garden, invite them over with local wildflowers—they’re hardwired to look for these—or tried-and-true basil, bee balm, borage, cosmos, dill, lavender, milkweed, nasturtium, and zinnias. Set out a shallow dish of water with stones to perch on in order to keep the bees hydrated and happy.

Invite bees to your garden with wildflowers, or hand pollinate your vegetables by manually taking pollen from a male flower and applying it to a female flower. Mike Richter/Shutterstock

Understanding Pollination

Botanists often refer to plants as “monoecious,” “dioecious,” and “hermaphrodite” when it comes to pollination and fruit-bearing, but what does that mean to you?

Monoecious

Monoecious plants have both male and female flowers, meaning that they are self-pollinating, with a few exceptions that have a genetic barrier to prevent self-fertilizing and inbreeding. When in doubt, plant several of a plant type.

Dioecious

About 5 percent of plants are dioecious, where each plant has either male or female flowers. Only the female plants can produce fruit, and one male plant can pollinate many females. This design keeps the species strong by preventing inbreeding.

Hermaphrodites

On hermaphroditic plants, every flower features both a pistil and stamen. They can be pollinated by a bee with pollen from another flower, but most commonly self-pollination occurs while the flower is closed and a bee, butterfly, or the wind jostles it.