2022-11-09 by Sebastian Caravallo Blog

The Farmer’s Haiku

The Rooster greets the morning sun

With plow in hand The Farmer makes love to the earth

Farm Haiku by the Word Whisperer

The Bottom Line Is the Earth:

What else is it all about other than the precious earth? Let’s peek at why we love it so much and what the dickens is the earth made of.

The Soil:

Soil is a mix of minerals, organic matter living organisms, water, and air. They all play a part in creating an environment that allow plant roots to grow and take up water and nutrients to support growth. These terms deserve definition, as I guarantee many readers have been coasting over their lives without knowing what they really mean, and how they, as a happy family, joined together in joyful healthy union, make pretty plant babies for you and me.

Minerals: They are small fragments of rock and are the most abundant component of the soil. Just consider you may what once was a great mountain in your back yard, now worked down over time into tiny particles of sand, silt, or clay, depending on the size of each grain. The mix of sizes gives the soil a particular texture and influences how well the soil holds water and allows it to drain. If you take a loose ball in your hand after a couple of days of rain and squeeze, you can tell its composition to some degree: If it crumbles it is about the right composition. If it forms a ball and remains firm, it has a substantial amount of clay. If it can be formed into a sausage, it has lots of clay.

Organic Matter: The fresh remains of plants and animal decay and become part of the soil. As plants grow and die, their leaves and tops and roots are digested by microorganisms living in the soil. This transforms the nutrients in the plant matter into forms that can be absorbed by the plant’s roots. Thus, you have a recycling system in the soil. Organic matter that has decayed is called humus and helps the soil to hold water.

Living Organisms: We all know about earthworms, critters living in their little holes like mice, moles, snakes, insects, mites, nematodes, and microorganisms. Their activity creates channels in the soil for air and water. They are the prime source in the decay cycle that replenishes the soil’s natural fertility and when balanced, make all the difference in soil health.

Water and Air: It goes without saying that plants need to take up water to grow and survive. Water is the carrier for dissolved nutrients that plants need for growth and development. The roots and soil organisms need air to function properly, and believe it or not, air is a food source for some soil microorganisms.

Proportions of Each in the Soil: Soil is nearly half minerals, and half water and air. Organic matter makes up only a small percentage of the soil but has a huge impact on fertility. Then the life of the soil, including mammals, reptiles, insects, and microorganisms play a huge role in the necessary decay cycle.

Bet You Never Thought About Dirt in These Terms

Anytime you inject a life cycle into anything on this earth, you get into a complex interaction of elements that make the plant, animal, creature, or human tick. Just compare the complex interaction of these elements in a simple plant, as in giving the carrot or a fig tree its form and characteristics, with that of the 100 trillion human cells in the human body simultaneously processing 50,000 proteins, with chemical reactions of 2,000 times per second, where every cell must be in sync with every other one to run a body effectively. It took a while to evolve the body and plant from a simple cell to its present intricacies. Be proud of yourself. You have worked your way to the top of the food chain! Plants have served as a food source for man directly to his table or via the animals that ate it. The bottom line is we all rely ultimately on plants for survival.

Let’s have a little fun here and listen to a story told by a peach tree…

“Hey, I Need To Tell Y’all About How Great My Human Is:

I am just a peach tree in a peach orchard, and we had no rain, and our soil had become depleted. Suddenly my roots were filled with energy and started building like they had been to the root gym. Then my limbs strengthened, and my leaves turned thick and deep green, and most of all, you gotta see and get a bite of my sweet peach babies. They were so heavy I thought my limbs would break but my limb muscles had grown strong enough to hold a bushel. All of us peach trees are standing out here not needing the fertilizer and nasty chemicals they usually give us, and the bugs are no problem.

What Did My Human Do?

He got a hold of something called Kyminasi. It’s connected to the irrigation pipe and it programs the water that flows into our orchard so it harmonizes with us and blends with our friends in the dirt and makes them into a real happy chorus. Now we don’t worry about being thirsty, about being bothered by bugs or by having to eat that nasty chemicals. We wash it down with water that goes down like the finest wine. Thank you, Human. You the best Human anywhere.” – your peach tree

L D Sledge, The Word Whisperer Human

Source: Necessary Trading Company