August GreenWay article
Bugs
As "our" ecosystem collapses, the smallest forms of life have an advantage. Microbes can reproduce every ten minutes, and so also mutate to adapt much more frequently. We may extinct most larger species, even us, but we will never get rid of the single-cell organisms. There are species of microbe able to withstand thousands of times the amount of radioactivity as us. One such is deinococcus radiodurans, nicknamed Conan the Bacterium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans
A more common use of the word "bug" refers to insects - butterflies, moths, bees, ants, flies, ladybugs, stinkbugs, mayflies, fruit flies, spiders, tics, potato bugs, and others. The population of these vital parts of Earth's food web have been in decline for many years, and are in steep decline now. “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.” ~Albert Einstein
Having become enraptured with microbes since the third grade when my mom and dad bought me a microscope, I have learned how vital they are - in soil, for instance. A really good healthy soil may be one third living organisms - earthworms, bacteria, fungi, viruses, rotifers, nematodes.
Hundreds of years ago, our soil was alive and soft. Strawberries grew everywhere, trees and their leaf litter covered the whole United States. Before we extincted the passenger pigeon skies would be blackened with their flights. Millions of buffaloes in huge herds, along with numerous other kinds of wildlife, with their manures and dying bodies gave a soil so rich none of us in this generation has seen. Doing farm work in West Virginia in the late 1970's, I got to feel soil much softer and richer than what we have today.
Plants currently growing in Everybody's Garden:
Rose-of-Sharon, thyme, arugula, cucumber, tomato, sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke)
lambs quarters, purslane, fig, peppermint, apple mint, lemon grass, hot pepper,
pea, garlic, basil, chamomile, roses, dill, collards, strawberries, rappini, horseradish, apple, peach, apricot, mustard, kale, iris, sunflower, parsley, borage, sage, and corn.
As "our" ecosystem collapses, the smallest forms of life have an advantage. Microbes can reproduce every ten minutes, and so also mutate to adapt much more frequently. We may extinct most larger species, even us, but we will never get rid of the single-cell organisms. There are species of microbe able to withstand thousands of times the amount of radioactivity as us. One such is deinococcus radiodurans, nicknamed Conan the Bacterium. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans
A more common use of the word "bug" refers to insects - butterflies, moths, bees, ants, flies, ladybugs, stinkbugs, mayflies, fruit flies, spiders, tics, potato bugs, and others. The population of these vital parts of Earth's food web have been in decline for many years, and are in steep decline now. “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live.” ~Albert Einstein
Having become enraptured with microbes since the third grade when my mom and dad bought me a microscope, I have learned how vital they are - in soil, for instance. A really good healthy soil may be one third living organisms - earthworms, bacteria, fungi, viruses, rotifers, nematodes.
Hundreds of years ago, our soil was alive and soft. Strawberries grew everywhere, trees and their leaf litter covered the whole United States. Before we extincted the passenger pigeon skies would be blackened with their flights. Millions of buffaloes in huge herds, along with numerous other kinds of wildlife, with their manures and dying bodies gave a soil so rich none of us in this generation has seen. Doing farm work in West Virginia in the late 1970's, I got to feel soil much softer and richer than what we have today.
Plants currently growing in Everybody's Garden:
Rose-of-Sharon, thyme, arugula, cucumber, tomato, sunchoke (Jerusalem artichoke)
lambs quarters, purslane, fig, peppermint, apple mint, lemon grass, hot pepper,
pea, garlic, basil, chamomile, roses, dill, collards, strawberries, rappini, horseradish, apple, peach, apricot, mustard, kale, iris, sunflower, parsley, borage, sage, and corn.
posted by St. Jim the Composter at 9:16 AM
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