We gently place seedlings in soil full of bacteria and fungi.
They flourish.
If using a potting mix, we read the warning signs to put on gloves, a protective suit and a mask so we don't get exposed to these organisms because they might kill us.
Yet we have an immune system and the plants to not.
What's the difference?
The difference is that plants have been finding and developing strategies since time began to defeat these microbes.
The first fossils of macroscopic land plants have been found in the Middle Silurian of Ireland. They are about 425 million years old.
That's half a billions years to get a strategy together.
Their strategy involves a multitude of phytonutreients and stress activated nutrients to resist the microbes.
The more ancient, the more pigmented, the hardier, the more bitter, the deeper their roots, the less processed by man...the more effective they are.
Our strategy is to harness their gift. They give them to us.
Weeds like dandelion, thistle, nettle, cobblers peg and plantain grow best in solid disturbed by man. They contain huge amounts of medicine.
It's like they are saying "You guys have right royally fucked up and have destroyed the earth, but we forgive you, we come in peace to offer you our gifts. To love you, to heal you."
And so we in our infinite wisdom we spray the buggery out of them with cancer causing chemicals.
Orrrrr.....we gratefully acknowledge their gift and we learn to collect them or exchange with those who forage them for us.
As economic conditions deteriorate globally....it is the wild weeds that guarantee us food, powerful medicine, barter, security and "money."
"I am going to venture that the man who sat on the ground in his tipi meditating on life and its meaning, accepting the kinship of all creatures, and acknowledging unity with the universe was infusing into his being the true essence of civilisation."
Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Lakota Sioux