Brooklyn1 wrote:
Todd wrote:

What I don't understand is how the plant would have enough
power left in it to grow both potatoes and tomatoes. Must
be the richest soil the plant could handle without burning
the plant!

When kindergartners are taught to plant beans with just blotting paper
and water even five year olds quickly learn that once germinatiom
occurs (in darkness) plants receive most of their growth energy from
sunlight. Plants will thrive and fruit in the poorest soil given
sufficient water and sunlight. Left to their own devices plants set
only enough fruit to reproduce. Using fertilzers and other agri
techniques is only to increase yield in less time... actually
selective hand harvesting will increase yield better than fertilizing.
Commercial growers fertilize because that costs less than constant
labor. As a home grower I don't use any feretilizers but all else
equal (water and sunlight) I selectively harvest constantly and end up
with a larger/better crop than had I just fertilized... easy to prove
by planting several tomato plants and fertilizing half and selectively
harvesting the other half while adding no fertilizer... constant
selective harvesting ensures a large less seedy crop... I'd much
rather an abundance of smaller veggies than a few giant seedy
specimens Most home gardeners over fertilize and over water, they do
more harm than good. More and more produce is being produced
hydroponically with no soil.


While it is true that much fertilisation of plants is ill advised, most
plants will NOT thrive in the poorest soil with only sunlight and water.
Heavy feeders exhaust the minerals in soil quickly and the rest more slowly
and unless they are replaced your crop will get smaller and your plants
weaker year after year. Farmers may well try to get crops to market
quickly but they are also interested in yield and that is the primary reason
for the application of fertiliser in agriculture. We might talk about
whether the large scale application of synthetic fertiliser is the best way
to get the result in the long term but to say that the present world could
be fed without some kind of fertiliser applied to cropland is just daft.

If you don't plant annuals you might imagine that your trees, shrubs and
grass are indicative of cropping but it isn't so.

Note that we are talking about crops here, where you take away large amounts
of organic material regularly, you can get systems that are approximately
closed regarding minerals (eg an undisturbed natural forest) that don't need
fertiliser applied by humans to but that isn't cropping.

But perhaps things are different in your part of the world, the Breatharian
spaceship must be right over your plot. Do you still eat three meals a day?

--
David

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A better world requires a daily struggle
against those who would mislead us.