By David Wall
Wells, during times of drought, can get very low or even go dry. To conserve water, keep pitchers or pots in the kitchen and in the bathroom. Save the running water while waiting for it to get hot. Every drop helps when the well is running low.
While fire ants are totally undesirable, and regular ants are normally just considered pests. Having ants in a garden is not all negative. Their nests and tunnels loosen the soil to increase aeration and water infiltration, which results in increased photosynthesis and transpiration. Ant “food” carried in and out of the nest increases organic matter. They even enrich the nitrogen content of the soil. When everything seems to degrade the soil and plants, ants help to reverse the process!
85% of all plant life is found in the ocean. Bananas have a natural chemical that makes people feel good! By the way, we eat over 100 billion of them every year! The first aspirins came from the bark of willow trees. There are over 80,000 edible plant species, but 90% of the food we eat come from just 30 of them!
Carrots were originally blue or white. The orange color we buy today came about by way of genetic mutation. They were first known to have been eaten back in the Persian empire.
Forests today, while well managed and on the increase, are only 20% of the forests in existence 8,000 years ago. On top of that, 68% of the known & studied plants are in danger of extinction. Even more serious, the rate of extinction is estimated to be 5,000 times faster than normal, a lot of which is thought to be caused by global warming.
A cluster of bananas is called a hand, and bananas in the cluster are called fingers.