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A Mineral Application Experiment (Unintended)

The photo below is of Romanesco Broccoli plants, taken December 15, 2015. There was a failed crop of cucumbers in this bed which I pulled in late August, and transplanted in the Romanesco seedlings.

Usually I apply feathermeal, a bit of gypsum for sulfur, and as little powdered borax as possible between crops. As there was no leaching and the cucumbers didn’t amount to much, I was nervous about applying the borax. “Oh, well”, I said, “At least the plants on the ends will be ok, even if the plants in the middle get too much boron”. As you can see, the two plants on the left that got the boron are doing much better than the single plant on the right.

The difference would be even more striking if I hadn’t given borax to the plant on the right (and indeed to the whole garden) about 5 weeks ago, when I realized what was happening.

This is probably the most stunning trials result I have ever seen.

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