Curious hexbears: ask your plant questions. Botany enjoyers: let's try to answer them!
Had fun sharing some plant knowledge yesterday, would love to share more!
Had fun sharing some plant knowledge yesterday, would love to share more!
so i have a tree i put in a pot, covered with soil, and only ever added water to it. my tree's mass has increased, yet the soil has not lost any! by what magicks was water transmuted to bark, sap, and leaf?
The mass of a tree is primarily carbon, and comes from the splitting of CO2 into O2 and C by way of photosynthesis.
the carbon must come from the water, so water is made of coal??? 
i must inform the king!
okay but non-joke question: what the hell is a nitrogen cycle and how does it work in practice like in your garden
Here's a nitrogen cycle diagram. It's not dissimilar to things like the water cycle or food chain cycle.
Practically speaking, you want to occasionally plant nitrogen fixing plants in your garden, as other plants will remove it from the soil. Lots of people will put tons of fertilizer into their garden, and that seeks to achieve similar goals.
how can there be plants that leech & plants that fix nitrogen? if they all need nitrogen, that is. do they all need nitrogen?
The sky is full of nitrogen, some of them can grab it from there and others take it from the ground. I'm not a plant scientist, so I don't really know all the details
The pea family is notorious for this, this is part of why I throw clover all over anytime I turn dirt in the yard