Quotes from Jeff Lowenfels

Water freezes in rock cracks and crevices and expands, increasing its volume by 9% (and exerting a force of about 2000 pounds per square inch) as it turns to ice. Hot weather causes the surfaces of rock to expand, while the inner rock, just a millimeter away, remains cool and stable. As the outer layer pulls away, cracks form, and the surface peels off into smaller particles.

Visualize any wooded area you remember visiting. It is beautiful, majestic - and no one ever fertilized any of the plants there. Not one single time.

Who wants what? The answer to what any given plant prefers is found in the next two soil food web gardening rules. Rule #2 holds that most vegetables, annuals, and grasses prefer their nitrogen in nitrate form and do best in bacterially dominated soils. Rule #3 points out that most trees, shrubs, and perennials prefer their nitrogen in ammonium form and do best in fungally dominated soils.

The membrane surrounding the nucleus has large (for a fungus), tubelike extensions that create the endoplasmic reticulum

nematode trapped by a single looped fungal strand, or hypha.

Von Liebig's Law of the Minimum states that if one nutrient doesn't reach the minimum required by a plant, then it doesn't matter how much more of the others you apply. In short, the barrel will only hold up to its lowest stave.

Fungi cell walls are not full of cellulose like plant cell walls, and fungal walls contain the polysaccharide chitin, a main constituent in the exoskeletons of arthropods such as insects, lobsters, and crabs.

If you really want to be a good gardener, you need to understand what is going on in your soil.