Have you ever felt that you didn’t belong here, or just been told by a very bold, uneducated person that you don’t belong here? Have you ever had weeds grow in your field, garden or lawn that you thought didn’t belong there? Have you ever had insects invade your field and eat your crop, like armyworms, or crows peck holes in your lawn, or skunks dig up your lawn? All of those things should make you think, why?
Every weed that grows is informing you that certain conditions in your lawn, garden, or field are more adapted to growing that particular weed than a crop of corn in your field, a certain vegetable that you are trying to grow or a weed free lawn.
There are several little booklets like, “When Weeds Talk”, that explain which conditions are most important to the growth of most individual weeds and crops that you are trying to grow.
Even the lowly dandelion that was so abundant this year in most lawns and roadsides, not only is informing you that where it grows is low in calcium, but the dandelion root penetrates several inches or even feet below the topsoil down into the subsoil looking for calcium. The dandelion roots pick up calcium from the subsoil and translocate it up through it’s chlorophyl to the top of the plant. When the plant dies, the calcium that is in the plant is now up in the topsoil and improves the ground for beneficial crops or grass.
The companies that sell fertilizer and weed killer will gladly sell you something to kill the dandelion and green up your lawn, but the low calcium problem still is there to grow a healthy crop of dandelions next year.
Calcium is the least expensive soil amendment that you can buy, and a few dollars worth of calcium lime sprinkled on a lawn will raise the calcium content in the topsoil and not only discourage the growth of dandelions, but also help the soil release more phosphorus to make the garden, lawn, or field crops grow faster.
Most insects start their life cycle when a flying insect like a butterfly lays its eggs on a sick plant growing in ground that is deficient in some mineral like calcium. A sick plant gives off a different signal that flying insects can detect, which encourages them to choose them to lay their eggs on. Insects like armyworms or rootworms may move from a field that is low in calcium into a healthy field that has adequate calcium, but they will not stay there or move in farther because the crop don’t taste the same. Skunks, racoons, and crows on your lawn are after white grubs that are the result of June bugs laying their eggs on a lawn in need of calcium.
All weeds and crops have a different preference for perfect growing conditions based on different minerals in the soil. The challenge for the farmer or gardener is to balance the soil to encourage optimum growth of the crops planned and also balance it to discourage the weeds and insects not wanted. Perfect growing conditions is something seldom attained but working towards it is a good goal. Most unwanted weeds and insects are trying to tell us something.
People are similar to good crops. Through my many years of working at being a farmer, we have had many different employees who spoke different languages and came from many different cultures. Very few people are perfect in all languages or understand all the different cultures in the world but through trying, listening and understanding each others differences, we can all improve our lives.
After the Second World War, when I was only two years old, we had an Ukrainian employee who had spent several years in a German concentration camp. I used to sit on his knee when we had breakfast each morning. Dimetro’s English wasn’t much better than my Ukrainian, but he was one of my best friends. Neither of us expected the other to be perfect.
Those of us that live in this part of the world have had the opportunity to be surrounded by people who came from every country in the world, spoke dozens of different languages, brought with them diverse and wonderful cultures, have several different skin colors, and have many different religions. The minority that make us feel like we don’t belong, or are so uneducated to tell us that we don’t belong are maybe the ones that “don’t belong”.
Those who try to enrich their lives with new diverse cultures and try to learn even a little of different languages are an asset to any community.
