This is the time of year that backyard tomato growers are nurturing their plants and hoping for a large and delicious yield. If your tomato plants are lush and leafy but skimping on the fruit, you’re not alone. Growing tomatoes can sometimes feel like you’re giving a lot of love but not getting much in return. There are a few strategic tricks that I have discovered that can dramatically boost your tomato yield — including one surprisingly effective hack that involves a humble electric toothbrush.
Let’s walk through a few proven methods to coax more tomatoes from your plants.
1. Prune for Power
Tomato plants are naturally vigorous, often growing a wild tangle of stems and leaves. But all that leafy energy can come at the expense of fruit production. That’s where pruning comes in.
By removing the “suckers” — those little shoots that grow in the crook between the main stem and a branch — you’re helping the plant focus its energy on the main stems and fruit clusters. Pruning also improves airflow, reducing disease risk and allowing sunlight to reach the inner branches. Healthier plant, more tomatoes.
2. Feed Like You Mean It
Tomatoes are hungry. To get high yields, you’ve got to keep them well-fed — but not just any fertilizer will do.
- Start with a balanced fertilizer when transplanting (like 10-10-10).
- Once the plant starts flowering, switch to a low-nitrogen, high-phosphorus formula (like 5-10-10).
Too much nitrogen = lush leaves and very few tomatoes. Phosphorus encourages flowering and fruiting. Think of it as a shift in diet once your plant hits puberty.
3. Stress Just a Little (But Not Too Much)
This one sounds counterintuitive, but slight water stress can encourage tomato plants to fruit. When the plant senses a tough season ahead, it shifts into survival mode — producing fruit and seeds to reproduce.
Don’t let your plant wilt or dry out completely, but slightly reducing watering once the fruit sets can prompt more consistent ripening and bigger yields.
4. The Ingenious Electric Toothbrush Trick
Tomatoes are self-pollinating, which means they technically have both the male and female parts on the same flower. But for successful fruit set, the pollen still needs to move — and in nature, bees or the wind usually help.
Enter: the electric toothbrush.
Yep, that $20 multipack from Costco might be the best tomato tool you own. Here’s how it works:
- Wait until your tomato plants are flowering.
- Turn on the toothbrush and gently touch it to the flower stem, not the petals themselves.
- Just a couple of seconds per flower cluster will do. The vibration shakes loose the pollen, simulating the buzz of a bee.
This method — sometimes called buzz pollination — dramatically increases fruit set, especially in greenhouses or in calm weather where natural pollinators are scarce.
I tried this last summer on a few Cherokee Purple plants that weren’t producing. After giving each flower a quick buzz every morning, I had more tomatoes than I knew what to do with. It’s simple, cheap, and oddly satisfying.
A few flowers a day, a few seconds per cluster — and suddenly you’re a tomato whisperer. Add that to smart pruning and the right fertilizer, and you’ll be hauling in baskets of ripe, juicy tomatoes in no time.
I still plant pollinator flowers throughout my garden to encourage nature to do its thing. But sometimes a clever hack can make a big difference.
Happy tomato-ing!