Plants

I have no one to speak to in English language. So, I have the necessity of writing. I also don’t have anyone to correct my grammatical mistakes in the writing because my wife (an English teacher) has no patience for that and no patience to speak at me in English. She says to me she is wearied of teaching at school. I’m looking forward to write about plants, the plants I have in my house today and the plants and trees I had in my farm «Farm of the Angel» many years ago (25 years ago). Do we know how the plants manage getting the gross sap on the leaves? And the elaborate sap in the roots? The plants have no hearts. How do they get the gross sap of the roots to go into the leaves and go through all the length of the trunk? How is it possible?

So, we dig a little ditch around the trunk of our fruit tree and we catch the garden (farm) hose to water the ditch plentifully. Immediately the soil of the ditch starts swelling (absorbing water) with water (we can’t see this with our eyes.) Yes, the soil, the clayey soil, the soil of clay gets swelling. Mind that only the sand of quartz doesn’t swell. All other soils swell with water. The clay soil, the limestone soil, the vegetable soil and so on, all soils swell (absorb) in the presence of water. The roots of our tree have a stronger swelling power than the soil! Yes, the humidity absorption in the roots is stronger than the soil. The roots swell with humidity and water that soak the soil. The soil absorbs the hose water and the roots too. But mind that the absorbent power of the roots is stronger and, probably, faster than the soil. Now what is this power of absorption, this power of swelling with humidity? What is this? This was taught to us in school, was taught in physics discipline. It’s the phenomenon of capillary vessels a very interesting phenomenon. If we have a stick of glass with a hole in all its length, a thin hole in all its length (how a straw) and we put one extremity, of this stick, in water immediately the water goes up the tiny hole. It doesn’t need a person to suck the water. The water goes «on its own» immediately. We can see this phenomenon in other manner: the absorbent paper that we have in our kitchens. The paper in the microscope shows many tiny vessels. The water goes up the paper because these tiny vessels. In physics the name the scientists give this phenomenon is «capillary vessels». So, in this manner we understand the soil and the roots of our tree they have many microscope vessels and they absorb the water of the hose. Now we know how the soil and the roots work. But how the trunk and leaves of our tree operate? How the gross sap goes from the roots to the leaves if the tree has no heart? The sap is the blood of the tree with no heart. So, when the roots are with plenty of water the trunk swells (we can’t see with our eyes) with the water, the gross sap, of the roots. The branches swell (absorb) with the humidity, the gross sap, of the trunk and the leaves swell with the sap of the branches. The leaves transform the gross sap into elaborate sap and this elaborate sap goes to the tree bark (the living part of it) and finally to the roots always swelling and absorbing. In this manner the plants, our tree, have no necessity of a heart.

My flowerpots in my house they never have water over the top. In the beginning I did this, I put the water over the top of my flowerpots and I killed all my plants. The earth of the flowerpots was all rotten. In this manner I start watering them in the vase dish. I put water only in the vase dish, «permanently», this is: I always have water in the vase dishes.  I had and I have, today, a big success! But if I put «substral», a mineral salt, a food for plants, in my flowerpots in the manner, in the amount, of the instructions of the bottle of mineral salts I think I would kill my plants. When the flowerpots are watered only in the vase dishes they can’t have mineral salts for plants. I think this is truth. Even, always, without salts I have a big success. My flowerpots they are always absorbing the water of the vase dishes, I think: but it’s truth I have a big success with my flowerpots long ago.

In my farm, many years ago, my mother asked me to water two trees because she needed the fruits of that trees. They were two lemon trees. I started by dig a ditch/trench around the two lemon trees in the spring. Every day I watered the lemon trees with 200 litres of water each. One day my father, the chief, saw the two ditches in the trees and scolded me because the watering ditches were so big and deep that he said the roots were out of the earth. The chief wasn’t afraid of nothing but was strange: he never saw anyone water trees in so strong a manner. But I was successful many years. Many years with the two lemon trees. The trees they had lemons and flowers and unripe lemons «all the year round». On January, in the cold, the lemon trees had ripe lemons, unripe lemons and flowers! All at the same time and in large amounts! This is success.

But why this success? We know the water of a spring, the spring water, has no microbes, no germs. It’s pure. When the water touches air and «furrows» (ditch for conduct water) immediately the water is contaminated with microbes and eggs of earthworms. It’s truth one span deep in the soil there isn’t any microbes. Only when the water goes down the soil there is microbes. When I watered the two lemon trees the water fertilized the earth of the trees with microbes and earthworms. The microbes attacked the clay of the lemon trees (recall my rotten flowerpots!), the earthworms ate these microbes and the soil near the lemon trees was very fertile. Very, very fertile. If watering the lemon trees was very good I never suspended the irrigation any year because if I did this, one year, the earth in the following year would become waterproof, impermeable. In the following year the water wouldn´t go deep in the soil of the lemon trees. This is truth. It´s necessary water plentifully the plants, trees and vines to have fruits all the year round and all the years.

I never understood very well one thing. Why I had many and big calluses on my hands when I never did heavy works in our farm? I think is the earth that did the same the cement and concrete does to the hands of the workers of building industry! Yes, the earth scorches and dries the skin of the hands of the farmers. The clay is terrible! I recall when the workers of our farm uprooted a shrub I wondered why the roots of this bush had many barks, peels, skins. It was amazing. Today I know what it was. The clay scorched the roots of the shrubs. One day the chief sent earth for analyses. They wrote to the chief that the earth of our farm was too heavy, the good earth is the light one. I wonder why we throw away the garbage of our cities. This garbage dried, powdered and bagged, mixed with the clay soil would do a better soil for agriculture. Not, never how manure. The soil wouldn’t scorch so much. The plastic of our houses powdered, mixed with the clay soil and watered would do a good earth for agriculture. The earthworms and the microbes would transform very well this soil. Can we destroy the plastic in this manner? Can we improve the ambient transforming the plastic with the work of earthworms and microbes?