I never imagined I was surrounding my house with killers when I planted all those tomatoes.
I'm an avid tomato gardener -- a REALLY avid tomato gardener. Even though there are just three of us in my family -- and one refuses to even taste a tomato (guess how old that one is) -- I plant 50 square feet of them every year. I feel like a one-woman tomato machine during the summer.
Apparently, according to an article in the Daily Telegraph, some garden vegetables can kill insects and ingest them, similar to the Venus Flytrap.
When I read this alarming, amazing news, published in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, my mind first went to my tomatoes and whether I ever noticed teeth. I've never spotted teeth, per se, but there are some sticky parts of the plant, especially on the stem.
Tomato plants -- as well as some other veggie plants -- can trap small insects in those sticky hairs, and I'm imagining (because the story doesn't say), hold them captive until they die. Then, the plant can absorb the nutrients the insects give off as the bugs decay. When the insect is just a shell, it falls to the soil.
I'll never underestimate my vegetables again. I think they're watching me.
Read the whole story at The Daily Telegraph.
Photo Credit: Associated Press
Tags: Chemistry, Everyday Science, Food Chain, Green Science, Plants,
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