POLLINATEyour veggies by hand:If your plants aren't producing as much as they should, they might need a little help from you

摘要

Procreation in the garden is pretty simple. The pollen from a flower's stamen has to find the ovary (pistil) in another—or sometimes the same—flower; the plant is now pollinated, and fruit and seed will form. So how can we make sure that our veggieplants become pollinated and, therefore, bear fruit?The plants are certainly doing their part. Flowers have evolved, over time, to attract pollinating insects, primarily through color and scent, and those insects do the job of transporting pollen from flower to flower. Most of the time, nature's plan works perfectly—except for when it doesn't. Sometimes the insects don't hold up their end of the bargain. Perhaps an overuse of chemicals has killed off much of the local population of insect pollinators. Sometimes it's the weather or just plain old bad timing that prevents our plants from producing well.