Hello everyone!

So a while ago, I did a gardening experiment involving Stinging Nettle. After thinking a little bit, I realized there were several errors when I did it.

Because of this, I decided that during next year's gardening season, I am going to redo the experiment.

For those of you who do not know, here is the experiment. I'm going to be following the scientific method during this experiment.

I found an article from an ancestor of mine from 1899. In Austria, my ancestor wrote that he used stinging nettle for the benefit of his plants. Here's what happened.

According to the article, whenever he saw stinging nettle, he collected it, then put basketfulls of it into barrels with pure stream water. he covered the barrel, and let it ferment. After a couple weeks of fermenting, he put one part nettle water and 10 parts stream water into a watering can. He then watered around but not on his plants.

According to the article, his cauliflower was so big that you could never find a bag big enough to go around it, and his cucumbers were 40 cm long.


When it comes to using the scientific method, I am in the process of step 2, collecting data. Next year after last frost, I will do step 4, testing the method he used in 1899.

I would like your guys's help on this part of Step 2 collecting data. What do you guys know about Stinging Nettle and compost tea?

Any data you guys can give me will be appreciated.

Jared

Generally with compost tea, you run air through it while it "brews", so it does not become anaerobic.

When you do your experiment, make sure you keep a control group that you do not add the tea to, so you can compare. You might just use plain water on that control group at the same time you apply the tea to the experimental group - just to be sure it is not the addition of water that gives you results.

thanks for the input. That was actually the problem with the last experiment, the lack of a control group. This time, I am going to be building some raised beds in my backyard, two to be exact. One of them will be the control, another will be the stinging nettle variable.

The tricky part is that I have an automatic sprinkler system. When I add the nettle water to the variable box, I have to add the same amount of regular water to the control, so they're getting the same amount of water.

I should probably document everything I do so that way I can keep track of what I do. It's hard to remember sometimes when you have ADHD. I think I'll do that in my journal.

I'm thinking of doing cauliflower as my plant of choice by the way.

Still collecting data.

Jared