Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 1
Plants
Plants are brilliant. Their brilliance is so often underestimated or even ignored, but let's
take a closer look. They photosynthesize: they take carbon, water and nutrients from the
soil and air, lounge out in the sun all day, say some kind of magic spell or something and
tada — they get a bit bigger.
And then we eat them. Pretty much everyone and everything eats them. They give us en-
ergy and medicine. It's proven a successful life strategy for them and they will be around
long after the last mega mall crumbles to the ground and the last humans have all moved to
Mars or something.
Plants make it rain — it turns out that when you cut or burn down a rainforest, it often
stops raining in that area. Plants make oxygen. They help make soil and then they help pro-
tect it. They are alchemists, the original pharmacists making all of our drugs. If you follow
the steps outlined in this topic and grow exceptionally nutritious food, you will be getting
natural doses of plenty of compounds that end up in our most common pharmaceuticals,
but without the harmful side effects that come from isolating and concentrating these com-
pounds into drugs.
Plants are an integral part of the soil food web. Their roots work through the soil, create
fresh organic matter as they constantly grow and die back, and actually dissolve rock to
form soil. Their bodies turn into organic matter every autumn when the leaves fall, and also
at the end of their lives.
Plants know when a storm is coming and experience electromagnetic “nightmares” when
it arrives. They have musical preferences. They know how you feel about them. They know
when a spider is climbing up the fence beside them. They share nutrients with each other,
through the mycorrhizal fungi that not only attach to their roots, but attach to the roots of
most of the other plants nearby, even miles away.
Most of us can't communicate with them very well anymore, but that doesn't mean they
aren't good communicators. They certainly communicate with animals, bacteria, fungi and
each other.
They invite so-called “pests” and “diseases” to eat them when the time is right. At the
same time, they warn each other when they are being eaten so others can fortify. They com-
