PLANTS ARE UPSIDE DOWN -- with their Mouth in the Soil and their Stomach in the Air!

An observation from V. das Kaviraj in the 'Reply' section of his article, The Role of the Elements in Agriculture

"...The plant is a much different entity from humans.... Plants are upside down - they have their mouth in the soil and their stomach up in the air. They behave in a different way, also because they cannot move. To be rooted in the same spot requires a different set-up for life.  The design of a plant is simply having a open stomach, and picking up the digestive substances from the air, much like you produce acid in the stomach.

The real world for plants is underground and a cubic centimeter of soil has around a 100 million living entities. There are countless pheromones and allelochemicals, bacteria, viruses, fungi and macro-fauna, such as insects and worms. All of these live in a giant symbiosis and each is dependent on the other. Roots have associated fungi, which process the nutrients in bite size pieces for plants, associated bacteria, which digest rotting plant material and excrete these nutrients also, which are picked up by the fungus and further subdivided.

Life, for the plant, is in the soil."

For further understanding of the part soil plays in our Garden:
Examine the vast diversity of micro- and macro-organisms living in the soil and the critical roles they play in agriculture.