GardenTalk03-A dwarf can be a giant!

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There is an interesting story in the ancient Indian mythology. Apparently, there was a wicked King by name Bali. God wanted to minimize his menace to mankind. So, God took the form of a dwarf – Vamana and approached the king asking for 3 foot holds of land. 

The king thought – “Afterall a dwarf! How much land he can lay his foot on?” So, he agreed to give him that much land. 

But all of a sudden, this dwarf turned himself into a giant – Vikrama, who could measure the entire world and outer space by just two steps with nothing left to lay the third step! That way, God sent the wicked king to nether worlds since the King could not keep his promise. Moral of the story is that – don’t underestimate someone by their size! They can do gigantic things!

Coming back to the garden talk, what dwarfs are we talking about?

In the previous episode, we were wondering how the plants like Mimosa Pudica are able to produce N and K rich fertilizers and release them to the soil.

Actually, it is not the plants that produce these nutrients. They are not capable of doing that, like all other plants. The miracle is actually done by some microorganisms. These tiny creatures start as parasites in Mimosa Pudica, but later become friendly, believing in mutual help.

Mimosa Pudica provides these bacteria the housing they need, and these microorganisms in return produce the nutrients that Mimosa Pudica needs. Sort of a tenant who pays the rent!

If you have Mimosa Pudica plants in your garden, just pluck one of them from the soil without damaging its roots. But be cautious, they have sharp thorns and can hurt your bare fingers, especially if they have started flowering and fruiting.

Just observe the roots. You can see many knot-like structures in its roots. These are the nodules that house these miracle making bacteria. These bacteria belong to a family of bacteria called Rhizobium.

The way the plant and the Rhizobium work together is something like this. First the plants develop thin roots and secrete some chemicals to attract these bacteria that may be present in the soil. These bacteria get attracted to the roots. They enter the roots and infect the plant cells. Infected roots develop nodules in which these bacteria find a home.

The plant nurtures these bacteria by providing them food in terms of carbohydrates and also oxygen to breathe. The bacteria pay back the debt by converting atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia-based compounds. The host plant uses these ammonia-based compounds as its source of nitrogen.

By the way, when you feed a plant with nitrogen rich fertilizer, you are actually supplying it with ammonia-based compounds, chemically produced in our factories by artificial means. They serve the purpose, but are harmful in the long run.

But the nitrogen provided by the bacteria are very useful and harmless.

And finally, when the plant ages and dies, its roots get disintegrated into the soil, adding nitrogen rich manures to the soil, for the benefit of other plants that succeed it. The Rhizobia leave the dead plant and go in search of another healthy plant and the cycle continues.

It is not just Mimosa Pudica, but most legume plants can also do the same miracle. However, cereal plants like paddy or wheat cannot. So, what is done is to grow legumes and cereals one after the other.

When the legume crop is harvested, the nitro-fertilizers that were left behind by their roots can be utilized by the cereal crop that follows. With such a practice of ‘crop rotation’, the need for providing additional external Nitro-fertilizer can be greatly reduced. It could be even nil.

These bacteria that produce nitrogen-based fertilizers by directly taking up nitrogen from air are called ‘nitrogen fixing’ bacteria.


Does it mean that we always need to grow legumes if we want to produce these fertilizers? Not really. There are other bacteria that are also capable of producing nitrogen-based fertilizers by directly taking up atmospheric nitrogen. These bacteria don’t need any host plants. They can survive in soil and still produce nitrogen-based fertilizers.


A group of bacteria together named Azotobacter are often used as nitrogen fixing bacteria in general cultivation not necessarily involving legumes. These bacteria don’t need any host plants. They can thrive in soil independently and still perform miracles!

Well, we have taken care of Nitrogen requirement of plants. How about Phosphorus and Potash? How do we get them?

We will discuss that in the next episode.


A series of weekly (every Monday 12 PM PST) talks on new ways of Gardening by Dr. King. © Dr. King 2019