Without pollination, vegetables wouldn't be able to grow on plants. Pollination is critical to the gardening community, and is necessary for a successful garden.

What is Pollination?

Pollination is the fertilization process in plants. It allows for plants to produce fruit and seeds for future plants. Pollination can happen through wind, water, self-pollinating plants, and animals. Pollinating insects carry pollen between flowers on your plants so that the flowers turn into produce!

Even though pollination is important, it’s not needed if the plant doesn’t produce fruit. For plants like radish, spinach, and basil, pollination is not necessary because only the leaves or roots are being harvested to eat.

Key Pollinators

Pollinators include animals and insects like bees, butterflies, ladybugs, hummingbirds, wasps, bats, moths, and more! These animals and insects are crucial to a healthy garden ecosystem and can help your garden blossom and thrive.

Sometimes, however, pollinators are not able to visit your garden. If there are harsh weather conditions, not many flowers in your area, or there has been habitiat loss / pesticides used in your growing area, pollinators may be unable to thrive. This is why it's important to make sure you have plenty of attractive flowers near your garden to give pollinators a safe place to land and eat.

On certain plants, there is a male flower and a female flower, like squash. Most fruits and vegetables grow from female flowers only, but the flowers need to be pollinated by the male flower first. This is called cross-pollination. Other plants, however, will have both the female and male parts in one flower, like tomatoes. This is called self-pollination.

In cross-pollination, the pollen from the male flower needs to be carried over to the female flower. A pollinator (like a bee or butterfly) will go inside the male flower to collect flower nectar, take that pollen from the male flower, and bring it over to the female flower. This fertilizes the female flower which then allows for fruits or vegetables to grow from the female flower for us to eat! Common plants that need cross-pollination are squashes, cucumbers, and melons.

In self-pollination, the flowers on a plant have all the parts they need to create fruit by themselves and do not need cross-pollination. For plants that have both male and female parts inside one flower, pollinators do not need to bring pollen from one flower to another, but pollination still needs to happen. Tomatoes, for example, have everything they need to produce a tomato from a single flower, but the pollen still needs to spread. This can happen through wind, water, or even by a gardener using a paintbrush to manually transport the pollen within the flower.