The Fertilizer Factor

Let's talk about fertilizer!

First, though, let's out Anitra "Happy Ending Every Time" Freeman. Anitra molests tomato plants!

I spoke of sacred cooking two weeks ago. Also sacred to some of us who've been homeless is the garden, and garden related activities. I don't have this symptom because in my reality there is but one Vegetable. All vegetable entities, be they rice, or flour, or wood, or potatoes, are merely manifestations of the One Great Onion in the One Great Dirt, and Anitra can have it.

The building where we live has a garden for residents like Anitra who need to muck about in one. They're growing tomatoes there, among other things. Two days ago, I'm not making this up, she wanted a vibrator for the tomatoes. Yes, THAT kind of vibrator. She said she wanted to help them "self-pollinate." Sick.

Then, yesterday, she said some of the plants she'd "helped" weren't old enough. Anitra is molesting under-aged tomato plants! I thought you all should know.

She's also been pouring "tea" on the garden. Not the tea you drink. It's foul compost tea. She gave me some for the house plants and I left some lying around. I came home to find the place smelling like a steaming outhouse. She said, "Oh, so it's true what they say, it DOES spoil quickly." I'm glad we both learned that.

[At right: The fall-back tool.]

Speaking of learning, I got to thinking about fertilizer. You know, you can learn a lot about the world by picking out just any random concept like "fertilizer" and tracking down what's done with it.

First, what is fertilizer? Fertilizer is plant food. OK, and what do plants eat, Wes? Almost any awful thing you can think of. There's crap, slurry (water and crap), blood, bone, worm crap, sewage, seaweed, limestone, urea, saltpeter, Chilean saltpeter, bird guano, bat guano, and seal guano.

[Left: Portrait of an active fertilizer.]

Saltpeter is potassium nitrate. Chilean saltpeter is sodium nitrate. Urea is a source of saltpeter. So is guano, which also provides phosphorus and phosphates with which to make so-called superphosphate which big farms spray on crops to feed them, and, indirectly, the rest of us.

In the 9th century, a Far Eastern alchemist who wanted an elixir to enable him to live forever had mixed up some sulfur, rat poison, and some crystals solidified out of urine. He thought "that should do it", and then it blew up in his face, literally.

Plants don't just get energy from nitrates. Explosives get energy from nitrates, too. Governments also get energy from nitrates. All God's chillun get energy from nitrates, ultimately, on this planet. With that realization came the U.S. Guano Islands Act of 1856. I bet you never heard of that, but you have heard of Midway Island, where we fought a huge battle in World War II. Have you ever wondered why were we at Midway Island in the first place?

For the guano! It was one of the islands that interested American citizens (i.e. companies wanting to profit from the demand for guano and guano related products, like gunpowder) were permitted to seize on behalf of the United States, by the Guano Islands Act. The Act only provided for short-term material exploitation of the islands seized. It marked the real beginning of American imperialism as contrasted to American expansionism.

After synthetic nitrates made guano less valuable as a source of explosives, guano profits fell and a lot of U.S. guano islands were abandoned. We kept Midway for its strategic location.

But don't think that means that guano is no longer important to the world's government, or that there won't be guano wars in the future. In fact, the current oil wars may just be a rehearsal for the future fertilizer wars.

Just as oil peaks, so will phosphorus. No phosphorus, no agriculture. No agriculture, massive world starvation, like nothing we've seen so far. There will be wars just to determine who eats.

I thought you all should know.