Beautiful blooms

'Hillbilly' tomato blossoms
Originally uploaded by sassycrafter

My tomato plants are flowering -- yay! I can hardly wait for them to produce fruit.

I haven't seen any bees pollinating the flowers yet. My understanding is that tomato flowers are self-pollinating but require the vibration of bee wings in order for the pollen to shake free from the anthers and pollinate the stigma. Just in case any bees don't come along, I jiggled the flowers with my fingertip. We'll see if this is helpful or if I'm being an overprotective tomato parent. I want my tomatoes!

Also, can you see the water droplets on the leaves in the background? Every morning when I come out to check on my tomato plants there are these beautiful water droplets along the edges of the leaves They're like little jewels the way they catch the morning light. I guess they're the result of the moisture the leaves have accumulated from a hard day of evapotranspiring. I imagine that the liquid makes its way to the leaf margins as the night progresses. Then once the sun rises each morning, the droplets are melted away by the sun's warmth, only to have the cycle begin again. Pretty amazing.