The Magic of Plants

As I showed in last post, my rooftop garden has been a so-so proposition this year. When mold, mildew, wilt and blight show up my interest in gardening drops.

I haven't read Michael Pollan's The Botany of Desire, but I found this lecture he gave in support of the book a bit of tonic for my bruised (garden) ego.



The complexity of plants--rice has up to 50,000 genes, humans have roughly 25,000--is another one of those things that I never paid much attention to. The connection between plant evolution and human culture, in particular how plants are intertwined with memory and consciousness, is fascinating.

Unhealthy tomato plants don't seem so important anymore.

And it might be time to read the book.