Even in antiquity there was an awareness that plants influence the growth of their neighbors. The earliest reference comes from Theophrastus (called the “father of botany”) who, roughly 2300 years ago, noted that chickpea killed weeds and depleted the soil. He might have been describing what we call “allelopathy”, the phenomenon in which a chemical […]

Next week we might remind ourselves that love is not rocket science. No, it’s way more difficult. Albert Einstein put the question, “How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?” We are still waiting for his answer. I would imagine, […]

The dog didn’t seem to be cold. I wasn’t either, but it was no warmer than —15°F. It was a clear, still night; we had gone out for a walk before bed and nothing much seemed to be moving. The only sound I was aware of was the brittle, dry snow crunching beneath our feet. […]

I shall confidently make one prophecy for the coming year: most New Year’s Resolutions will be broken by the time the first flowers of spring burst into bloom. January takes its name from Janus, the Roman god of door and gate. With his two faces, one facing forward, one looking back, Janus could both view […]

Like a splash of water on the face, as we stare at our future in the mirror, the first of the year revives us. Or that is the illusion, perhaps, reflected in the dim mirror of the winter solstice. New Year’s resolutions arrive, appropriately enough, when the sun arcs its lowest horizontal path across the […]

In the early seventeenth century, when our immigrant ancestors first settled what would become the USA, they tasted their soil to determine its potential as farmland. This practice persisted well into the twentieth century. A sweet taste told them the soil was neither acidic nor basic but around neutral; a sour taste indicated acidity and […]

The Swedish Academy’s announcement that the Nobel Peace Prize was being awarded to President Barack Obama met with considerable skepticism both in the United States and abroad. Commentators complained that the prize was premature, bestowed before President Obama had effected any peace initiatives—or much else. The President said that he viewed the prize as a […]

Life slips back and forth. Come late December, in my hometown in northern Illinois, we kids used to run home from grade school—and later middle school—drop our books, pick up our skates and head to Lake Ellyn, an oval of about 12 acres of spring-fed nirvana that was frozen by mid winter nearly all the […]

As gardeners, we often think of the soil as little more than something that holds up plants to which we sometimes need to add water and a little fertilizer. We forget its complexity and the universes within universes that it contains. Mycorrhizae, the associations between plant roots and fungi, is one of those universes. When […]

Vacation time’s a coming.  Just like the Dolly Parton song.  December yields about 2-3 weeks of holiday in the seed industry.  The “holy” part has its origins in solar worship.  Sure enough, I’ll be heading toward the sun.  Enlightment, indeed. For some years I’ve considered northern Arizona my home away from home.  Vacations in Yavapai […]