The seeds she planted in the mud grew quicker because the mud is holding nutrition for the corn. The soil is a good guess to make, but the mud is more dense and moist. The water wouldn't have had more nutrients than the mud, just because the mud holds breakdown matter and other things from other plants.
Long ears have to be dominant:
If this IS true then these would be your 'parents':
L = long ears
l = curly ears
LL x ll
If you cross the homozygous recessive curly eared rabbit (ll) with homozygous dominant long eared rabbit (LL) you would get 100% Ll - all would look long eared.
