garden experiments my way

That ‘barely a clue’ thing in my tagline? Not just a catchy phrase.

When I embark on a new scientific test, it’s always with good intentions. The problem comes when I have to chose a control plant, the one that stays as is, the normal one.

The reasoning usually goes like, “Ok, I won’t do anything to this plant so I can compare the results of adding extra [insert weird test here] to the other ones. But I don’t have that many plants. What if my theory works and this idea is fantastic. Then this control plant won’t be as good as the other ones.”

So nine out of ten times, there aren’t any conclusions to draw from my science.

I started out last season with a battery of experients for my tomatoes; pet fur in one hole, dead fish in a couple of others. But then I wanted to try banana peels and tums and diluted pee and epsom salts…

Winter-killed bass from our pond for a tomato hole

Yeah, it got out of control.

And so I didn’t have enough tomato plants to experiment with. Might as well use the control plant. It was the only choice.

Long story short, all of the tomato plants did fantastically. But the experiments were basically null and void. And I did learn something; if you put junk in tomato holes, it’s possible that they’ll do well.