Pollinating the Dragon Fruit

It’s August on the hill and I wake early to water the few surviving tomatoes, peppers and aubergines. The lettuce has collapsed in the heat and the cucumber leaves have turned to crisp, paper-thin yellowy-brown.

This morning though, 3 August 2026, I want to note the date, there are five showy white dragon fruit flowers, yellow-stamened and still open, ready for hand pollination.

I follow the method used by an American grower who reckons it’s best to pollinate them at night. We used to have bats flying around and I’d leave it to them, with mixed results, but now I hand-pollinate.

This involves taking a small artist’s paintbrush, searching around in the flowerhead for the pollen on the many fine yellow stamens, and coating the central stigma, the star-shaped structure at the heart of the flower, with the yellow powder.

I woke Jim, who was reluctant at first to leave his bed for this adventure, but I called out that this was a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity (well, for the dragon fruit at least).

I’m glad I did, because he found another flower hiding behind a pot.

For anyone wanting to get more fruit from their own plants, I’d also point you to Mark from Self Sufficient Me, an Australian grower whose tips on boosting your dragon fruit yield are well worth a watch.