With 50 of them in the garden this summer was I dicing with death each time I roamed amongst them ?
Whilst I was thinking of all the delicious ways to enjoy home grown tomatoes – were they returning the compliment, seeing me as a hearty Tomorite shot chaser ?
Despite the alarmist headlines it seems that a Little Garden of Horrors is a little wide of the mark – although perhaps not if you are an aphid.
In a wonderfully titled paper ‘ Murderous plants: Victorian Gothic, Darwin and modern insights into vegetable carnivory‘ from the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew came the news that some plants , tomatoes included catch and trap small insects in the sticky hairs on their stems. The dead and decaying insects then fall to the ground are absorped and recycled as part of the nitrogen cycle and the resulting nutrients made avaliable to the plant through their root system.
It is one of those schemes of nature that’s wonderful for its self sustaining efficiency – where everything has a purpose.
Although I’m relived it turns out I’m not part of that repurposing !
