Spring is right around the corner. To many people, this means reconnecting with the land that has lain fallow during the winter, plunging their hands into the rich, dark earth in their garden and coming up with -- well, I will tell you in a minute what you will come up with. As you prepare your soil, till the land, etc., here are some garden-related facts to encourage you in your work:
Encouraging Fact #1: There are more microorganisms in one spoonful of soil than there are people on earth. Scientific sources disagree somewhat on the exact quantity. Another source says there are more microorganisms in a cubic foot than there are people in China. Yet another uses this quaint wording: "A spoonful of soil can hold a substantial amount of living beings." The exact amounts are insignificant. The important thing is that a writhing mass of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, hyperactive dogs, etc., are at this moment fighting for mastery of your yard. If they can't achieve that, they will settle for Olympic broadcasting rights.
Encouraging Fact #2: There are more than 300,000 different beetles on earth. Based on my own gardening experience, that total of 300,000 may be slightly off by about 500,000. But be assured that most of these armor-clad, steel-strong, jaws-of-death beetles are harmless to people. Except for the ones with tiny little guns and hand grenades.
Encouraging Fact #3: There are more than 2,000 different kinds of spiders in the U.S. With all due respect to spider scientists, I personally feel that this number is grossly underestimated. If you are a spider scientist, and you doubt my personal feeling about this, you are more than welcome to use my yard and my house as a testing ground. You will see that there are way more than 2,000 different kinds of spiders, and that many of them have declared war on females. In fact, I suspect that households with no resident females have way fewer spiders, because guys tend not to be afraid of spiders -- an alternative viewpoint is that guys simply don't see the spiders, any more than they see the bottle of ketchup plain as day in the refrigerator -- and the sole function of spiders is to scare the bejeebies out of someone. But I mention the number of spider types mainly to lead into Encouraging Fact #4, which is...
Encouraging Fact #4: Spiders in the U.S. eat an amount of bugs in one year equal to about as much as all the people on the earth weigh. Although this would seem to be a very Encouraging Fact for gardeners -- given the amount of havoc bugs can wreak among plants -- in my experience most spiders prefer to hang out in the house, where they can create a nice quiet little home for themselves, maybe put on an addition, add a garage for their 2.2 cars, etc. They don't want to go outside into that teeming, writhing mass of bugs and microorganisms any more than you do.
Encouraging Fact #5: A single German cockroach is capable of producing 20,000 offspring a year. Few people are aware that this was the secret to Hitler's army, although some have commented on the similarities in marching style. What it means for your garden is that you better hope these cockroaches cannot swim great distances.
I'm sure you have noticed that all of these encouraging facts have one thing in common: They all happen on earth! And so you might think: I've got to get away from earth! Well, it's not too soon to start planning your escape to, say, another galaxy far, far away. After all, there's nothing scary out there.
No comments:
Post a Comment