Saltwater Crops
By Rick Gush, Urban Farm contributor
Photo courtesy of iStockphoto/Thinkstock
Some crops actually thrive on a little bit of salt in their water.
If you want to perform experiments on your garden and contribute to the data mass on this topic, the following are four other vegetable crops that might be appropriate candidates for deliberate saltwater-irrigation experiments:
Broccoli: Broccoli couldn’t be less watery, but it is quite tolerant of salt. The biggest problem is probably that working toward the development of a more nutritious broccoli even sounds a bit funny.
Cucumbers: These might be a good candidate, first because they’re relatively watery, which seems to enhance the effects of saltwater irrigation, and next because cucumbers are often accused of offering sparse nutritional values.
Spinach: Although spinach hardly needs to be improved either in flavor or healthfulness, it is already one of the most salt-tolerant vegetables. Perhaps some spinach superfood could be developed?
Zucchini: These plants are surprisingly salt-tolerant, and they produce so abundantly that a small reduction of total output might not be so bad in this case. Might saltwater treatments have a beneficial effect on zucchini’s common mildew problems?
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