Gardeners all over Perth are smiling after Friday night and here’s why
You may be wondering why it is that over the next few weeks, your garden will be looking a whole lot greener and a whole lot healthier, and yet you haven’t done a darn thing except sit on the couch and try and forget how hot it is out there.
It is going to be another scorcher today, in a long line of stinking hot days here in Perth, looking like a good day for sitting inside and out of the hot sun for sure. There must be something great to watch on TV or a good book to read.
What happened on Friday night?
I was dining out at a local cute, cheap, and cheerful Thai restaurant with some friends from my mother’s group. We all met 24 years ago when we had our firstborn children and while the conversation has moved on from newborn babies to new jobs, education, and HRT we were very distracted when the rain started and the lightening show began. All at once we exclaimed “Petrichor” and heard the pitter-patter of giant raindrops. It has been months since we have had even a drop of rain here, sop it is super exciting for us. We received about 8mls of very welcome rain in our suburb but even more exciting was the huge bolts of lightning that came with the rains.
What’s so exciting about lightning?
So, we all know that Nitrogen is good for your plants and that it will encourage green leafy growth. Nitrogen is a major component of chlorophyll and then we eat the plants and that keeps us healthy too. Nitrogen-based fertilizer is brilliant for lawns as lawns are just green leaves. You have probably heard that a hundred times from people advising you about how to grow a healthy garden.
Nitrogen is the major component in every garden fertilizer in every garden center. You will read on the side of the pack NPK nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K) which are the three essential things required for healthy plant growth.
Nitrogen makes up about 78% of earth’s atmosphere but this magical ingredient is not readily available for plants. It takes something truly amazing for it to be available for plants to take it up, just like the massive electrical storm that we experienced here on Friday night.
An electrical storm is so powerful that it breaks apart the Nitrogen (N2) in the atmosphere into N and combines it with Oxygen (O2) making it available to plants. Nitrogen Fixation requires an incredible amount of energy that can only occur during an electrical storm.
Here’s what the experts say about Nitrogen Fixation.
“Plants absorb nitrates in the soil and when we eat plants, we get the nitrogen in a form that our bodies can use. Plants also cannot make use of the nitrogen in the atmosphere so fertilizer is one way to add nitrogen to the soil.
Lightning is another natural way. Nitrogen in the atmosphere can be transformed into a plant-usable form, a process called nitrogen fixation, by lightning.
Each bolt of lightning carries electrical energy that is powerful enough to break the strong bonds of the nitrogen molecule in the atmosphere. Once split, the nitrogen atoms quickly bond to oxygen in the atmosphere, forming nitrogen dioxide.
Along with the lightning in the cloud are cloud droplets and raindrops. Nitrogen dioxide dissolves in water, creating nitric acid, which forms nitrates. The nitrates fall to the ground in raindrops and seep into the soil in a form that can be absorbed by plants.
Lightning does add nitrogen to the soil, as nitrates dissolve in precipitation. This helps plants, but microorganisms in the soil do the vast majority of nitrogen fixation.”
Source Steve Ackerman and Jonathan Martin, the ‘Weather Guys’, are professors in the UW-Madison Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.
Your garden will look greener and healthier because it is. Thanks to Mother Nature last Friday night.
Save money on applying expensive fertilizers for the next month or so because your plants have had a dose of nature’s very best fertilizer. Your garden will start to look greener and healthier than it has in months and now you know why.
Next time you experience an electrical storm with heavy rain and enormous bolts of lightning, step inside. Retreat to the safety of the house. SMILE. Nature has your next fertilizer regime all worked out for you. Your garden is getting both watered and fertilized for FREE and you haven’t had to lift a finger.
Featured Image Credit: Kane Artie/Severe Weather Australia/ Kane Artie/Severe Weather Australia
