Diary of a Carbon Farmer

This is the diary of an Australian family who escaped from the city, joined a farming community, and learned to love soil. Carbon Farming is about growing soil carbon - the first link in our food chain. The topsoil is where God's creation is taking place, at every moment. Carbon is the building block of life. By growing it we can restore ecosystems to health. At the same time we can remove Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere and store it as Carbon in the soil.

Saturday, January 28, 2006

It's true! Lightning can make your garden grow

I went looking for an explanation for why our dead and dying plants ahve suddenly revived after a series of hefty lightning and thunder storms. And I found it at www.ucar.org, the University Corporation of Atmospheric Research. They explain it this way:

"Atmospheric nitrogen becomes part of living organisms in two ways. The first is through bacteria in the soil that form nitrates out of nitrogen in the air. The second is through lightning. During electrical storms, large amounts of nitrogen are oxidized and united with water to produce an acid that falls to Earth in rainfall and deposits nitrates in the soil." Nitrogen is present in superphosphate which farmers pay heaps to spread on their fields. Lightning is like free fertiliser.