Last night we had a great lightning and thunderstorm. It started at about three in the morning and lasted for several hours. When you walked out of your house in the morning, did you notice how green the your grass and plants were? Did your plants look extra fresh and vibrant?
You weren't imagining things. It really is true. Lightning is a natural fertilizer giving your plants a quick boost of energy.
Now get yourself back to your high school chemistry days. I know my high school chemistry teacher, Miss Mitchell, would be happy with this. Here is the deal.
Air is comprised of 78% nitrogen and about 20% oxygen. We know that nitrogen is an important element that plants need for developing strong leaves and encouraging strong stem growth. If you go to the garden center and look at the plant fertilizers you will see how important nitrogen is. While air is mostly nitrogen, it is unfortunately in an usable form for plants. This is were lighting comes in.
The intense heat and electric charges produced by lightning causes the nitrogen molecules in the air to cling to the oxygen molecules. This bond forms nitrogen oxides. The nitrogen oxides will either fall from the sky themselves or be collected by the rain drops. The nitrogen is now in a highly charged form that can be used by the plants making them brighter, healthier and greener.
Now that is a natural fertilizer.
HI Karl,
ReplyDeleteTwo questions for you:
1. How do I know when to pull up my carrots?
2. My tomatoes have small dark spots on them.....primarily at the top by the stem. Are they okay to eat? Is it a bug ? I don't want to spray with pesticides, but not sure if they are edible? They are delicious in spit e of the black spots. :)
Hi Kristin, A good general rule is that you can pull your carrots when you start to see the tops of the carrot push above the ground.Of course eating carrots of all sizes is good. :) Sometimes smaller is better. The dark spots on your tomatoes is probably a condition called early blight. This can occur on the fruit and leaves. This can occur when we have warm and wet weather. Couple things. It is still OK to eat the tomato. Just cut the problem area off. You should try and water from the bottom directly onto the soil. Don't run the water over the top of the plant. This helps keep the plant drier and not be so wet and damp. Also, watering in the morning and good mulching works as well. Hope that helps. The good thing is that you are getting tomatoes. Mine are still green.
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