My daughter's science project...

Hi all,

I wasn't going to write about this, but the project
turned out to be so interesting I have to give it a
shout.

It all started when we were slow with the remote, and
the Martha Stewart show came on HGTV. She was boiling
chopped up willow branches on the stove, claiming that
"willow tea" is a natural root stimulant. I guess she
uses it on all her house plants.

Well, my daughter needed something to do for a science
project. And when she asks me, I usually suggest
something to do with pumpkin plants. We put the two
ideas together, and had 8 plants started, 4 that would
be fed willow tea, and 4 would get plain water.

We let them grow for about 10 days. I was worried that
this wouldn't work, but the plants fed with the willow
tea were a bit greener, and a tiny bit larger (on the
average) than the four "control" plants. We popped off
the plastic cups they were growing it, and to my
surprize the willow fed plants did indeed have larger
root systems.

My daughter won first prize among the 5th grade for
this!

In the end it may not be much different than a high
phosphorous fertilizer, but it appears to be an
extremely cheap and natural alternative, especially if
you have willows growing in your yard.

Regards, Cliff


_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin-growing archives: http://www.hort.net/lists/pumpkins/
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS

Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index