Too far gone?

[Conor Wright]

1 hour ago, Macpherson said:

Yep,... not that I want to derail your thread but borax has had many uses over the years....it's interesting that you use it on the veggies,  I've read that many folk have a borax deficiency apparently due to the fact that since the introduction of artificial fertilisers many crops have been inhibited from taking it up from the soil, as it's one of the micro nutrients needed for all life the knock on effect of this may be large... but I'm no expert on the subject,  all the best .

No worries, I'm far from an expert too. I just pick up little titbits of information here and there! It is true that some artificial fertilisers can have a negative effect on micro nutrients, especially when overused and not wholly drawn up by the plants they are applied on, the idea of building fertility using many inorganic fertilisers is not plausible in the long term. But that's for another day! One kg of borax can bring soil boron levels from deficient to required levels for plant uptake for a whole acre. And just to derail things further, calcium is required to stop blackness forming in cauliflower, I mentioned earlier we add boron to our brassicas, this is not for the same reason as beetroot (to stop blackheart or hollowness) blackness in cauliflower is usually down to a lack of calcium, you can have every other nutrient, macro and micro perfect but very low calcium will stop nutrient uptake and deform the plant. Gone a long way from mouldy beech logs in a few sentences, but there you go!