Feng Shui For Tomatoes
Tomato farmers in Great Britain have turned to the ancient Chinese art of feng shui. They hope a little harmony will not only improve their crops, but will generate interest in their product. Richard Roth reports for The Early Show.
In greenhouses last year, the secret weapon was music when the British Growers Association told this country's small band of tomato farmers that noise would help nourish the crop. This season, John and Caroline Jones and some other tomato growers are trying an approach that's gentler than rock in glasshouses.
To that end, tomato grower Caroline Jones shows off a new reflective device: "It's a mobile, and it has the sort of glittery bits on it that will reflect the sun back in. This end is the wealth area apparently," she says.
Feng shui, the Chinese art of harmonious arrangement, has been harnessed to help promote tomatoes in the Jones' greenhouse.
"We're not introducing any harmful elements whatsoever, and anything that can increase our production of British tomatoes we'll have a go at," she says.
So Jones painted green circles on the pavement. The circles were the idea of a feng shui consultant who also told the Jones to rearrange the hives that hold the bees that pollinate the tomato plants.
"The bees are receptive to color, so that particular color they tend to hover over, and the bees actually use it as a motorway zapping up and down," says feng shui consultant Sarah Shurety.
"Her first reaction was the energy flow comes straight in this end and goes straight out the other end," Jones explains.
Keeping energy in the greenhouse with paint and mirrors is one way feng shui is supposed to help Britain's tomatoes. Anonther way is to raise the profile of the crop, which competes against imports from Spain and Italy.
The idea being that if fame actually does come to the British tomato, fortune won't be far behind.