Domestic Lab Rat

Ah, gardening. Although I love spending time outdoors, I do not enjoy pulling weeds – I would much rather relax with a margarita and enjoy my beautiful plants and flowers. I hate weeds, and with good reason. Weeds grow fast, they grow everywhere, and they spread like wildfire.

Many people use herbicides (chemical weed and plant killer) to do the dirty work of making weeds shrivel up and die. However, these chemicals can be ingested by animals, and will also eventually enter our water supply. Not good. Herbicides also cost money. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to keep your garden weed free that does not involve chemicals or money? Keep reading to learn about photosynthesis, and you’ll learn how to make a better garden.

Photosynthesis

All living things need to grow, which requires carbon. Carbon is a key component in molecules that are essential for life – proteins, fat, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids (like DNA!). Humans and animals get their carbon from this substance known as food – broccoli, jelly beans, sourdough bread. Our bodies can break down this food and use the carbon to help us grow bigger and stronger.

Plants are a little different. With the exception of Audrey Two and other carnivores (like the venus flytrap), plants are out of luck when it comes to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But, they can do something much cooler – they literally make food out of thin air. Plants take carbon dioxide gas and turn it into sugar, which they use to grow.

Photosynthesis is the process of converting sunlight and water into sugar and oxygen. You’ve probably heard people taking about “fixing” carbon from the atmosphere. Carbon fixation is simply a fancy term for taking carbon gas from the atmosphere (carbon dioxide) and turning it into organic solids (like sugars). Carbon fixation is important for a number of reasons. As mentioned before, plants rely on carbon fixation in order to grow. Carbon fixation can also help fight global warming. Humans use fossils fuels to power cars and homes, and by doing so we’re dumping tons of carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, which is the main cause of global warming. But through carbon fixation, plants are removing some of the extra carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (although not quickly enough).

Image credit: Click

So, when the sun shines on a plant, photosynthesis occurs mainly in the leaves. Here, the carbon dioxide enters the leaf, and it is converted to sugar. In order to deliver this sugar to other parts of the plant, there is a network called phloem (pronounced flow-em) that carries sugar up to the flowers and down to the roots. Photosynthesis also requires water. There is a separate network called xylem that brings water from the roots of the plant up to the leaves for photosynthesis.

So how does this help your weed problem? After reading this, you may have already how to kills weeds without chemicals. All you have to do is keep them away from sunlight. They won’t be able to make food, and they will die. Check back for part 2, and I’ll give you detailed instructions for weed maintenance.

Remember those commercials advertising how you can clean an entire sink of dishes with just a spoonful of soap? Have you ever tried this? It really works. Yes, really.

But it took me a while to figure this out. I have always used waaaaaaay too much soap. I would put a drop into every drinking glass, and on top of every plate. My dishes were sparkling clean. But after some experiments, I found that I can use ten times less soap. My dishes were just as clean, but they were a lot easier to rinse off and I have not purchased Palmolive in a loooong time. Stick with me, and learn why such a little amount is truly needed.

Without soap, how will my dishes get clean? Turns out, there are a lot of thing happening when you do your dishes.

First, plain old water helps to dissolve your crusty food. Often, I’ll fill up a particularly nasty pot with water and let it “soak” overnight. Although I do this mainly because I’m lazy, there is actually a lot of chemistry happening. Water, all by itself, is a solvent – it will dissolve many different types of food. Also, using warm or hot water accelerates this process:

Next, your hands do a lot of the heavy lifting. Whether you use a sponge, a scrubby-thingy, or a cloth, all of that manpower removes stuck on bits of food.

Finally, although water is one of the best solvents out there, there are some things that water cannot handle, namely oil. Since oil and water don’t mix, in order to remove oil from your dishes it takes a special kind of molecule. This is where soap comes in. There are various types of soap and detergents, but their unifying characteristic is that each molecule contains two portions. One portion of the molecule, known as the tail, is hydrophobic. Hydrophobic substances are attracted to oily and greasy things. The “head” of the molecule, however, is composed of many atoms including hydrogen and oxygen (hey, that’s what water is made of!). It makes sense, then, that the head of the molecule is hydrophilic and is attracted to water, and will bond to water and most other food particles.

Soap molecule from here

So as your scrubbing your plates, the little soap molecules will mix with the greasy food molecules, and everything will be easily rinsed off. This is the only role of the soap – as I mentioned above, most of the work is done by the water, and your hands. Therefore, its not necessary to use a lot of the stuff. Seriously, only a little bit is needed. Here’s how you can S.Y.S. (Save Your Soap):

Take any kind of bottle, and put a little bit of dish soap in a bottle, and fill the rest up with water. It saves soap, and it looks pretty too.

You can probably dilute a lot of other household chemicals, as well. Leave me a comment, and share your bright ideas!