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July 10, 2007

Don't let your plants get a 'headache': Give them aspirin water

Master Gardener Martha MacBurnie has one of the most creative, beautiful landscapes in South County. It was recently featured on the cover of a national home and garden magazine, has been on numerous garden tours over the years and will be on public view again this coming weekend (July 14,15) during the Gardening with the Masters Garden Tour (see the details here).

One of the ways Martha keeps her landscape healthy is to spray them every two to three weeks with a very dilute solution of "aspirin water" -- that's right, aspirin water

First a little history: Martha is a major coordinator in the Master Gardener Demonstration Vegetable Garden at URI and a couple of years ago started an experiment treating vegetable plants with a solution of aspirin water. She diluted three ordinary aspirins (uncoated is best) in four gallons of water. Put the mix in a sprayer and sprayed each plant. Sounds nuts?

No -- there is science behind this. Aspirin contains a synthetic form of salicylic acid. Plants manufacture salicylic acid to activate their natural defenses against bacteria, viruses and fungi. There is also evidence that seeds soaked in aspirin water will have a higher germination rate and that some plants thus treated stand up better against heat stress.

Using this treatment at URI, Martha showed that plants grew better and had fewer problems. She tried variations on a theme including some commercial products that claimed to have the same benefits but aspirin was the winner. She even tried Alka-Seltzer (which contains aspirin) to get a better dissolve (aspirin does not dissolve easily) but still pure aspirin was the champ.

To dissolve the aspirin, she places a tablet in a little bit of cider vinegar before mixing it in with the water. Others crush the tablet between two spoons.

Martha has a background in science (she has a degree in meteorology) and is always tinkering with organic solutions to plant pest and disease problems. Admittedly the aspirin she uses is not strictly organic since it is a synthetic (purists would seek the sap from a willow tree which produces the purely organic stuff). But her aspirin-water treatment has garnered a lot of adherents and the attention of gardening newsletters nation-wide.

As for the headaches -- plants probably don't get them. But plant owners who use aspirin water seem to have fewer of them.

Posted by Rudolph A. Hempe  at 3:46 PM to How to... | Permalink

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Teri | July 15, 2007 6:53 PM link

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