Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Great idea but...

I want to spray my plants with aspirin. The original article (see this post) called for uncoated aspirin. I think the reason for this is that uncoated aspirin is easier to crush and dissolve in water, but it also may have something to do with the coating itself in coated aspirin. I did some research on the Internet and found different substances (like ethylcellulose and methylcellulose) used in the coating of aspirin. There is no way for me to know what effect those substances would have on my plants so I decided to use uncoated aspirin only.
BUT...
I could not find uncoated aspirin anywhere. I tried Walgreen's. No go. I tried Dillon's (a supermarket chain owned by Kroger) No go. I tried K-mart, Walmart. No go. All those stores only carried Coated and Enteric Coated aspirin. Finally, on my way back to work from lunch, I drove past a Deep Discount pharmacy and decided to try there and lo and behold they carried uncoated aspirin. You can tell it's uncoated because when you handle it, you are left with a dusty residue of aspirin in your fingers. Plus, it did not say Coated anywhere in the bottle. I checked the ingredients on the back of the bottle and the only other thing in the pills was corn starch.

Let the spraying begin!

***UPDATE****
In the original article, the dosage for this is 1.5 aspirin (81 gr) per 2 gallons of water. I can only assume that 81g stands for 81 grams. 81 grams equals 81000 milligrams(1000 milligrams = 1 gram) My aspirin came in pills of 385 milligrams each so that means I would have to use about 210 pills to make the solution stated in the article!!!! That did not seem right so I went online and began researching this. I found this article where a more sensible recipe is given: 250 - 500 milligrams of aspirin per gallon of water. That would be one of my aspirin tablets in a gallon of water. Much better!
As for how often to spray, I will still follow the every 3 weeks schedule.

1 comment:

  1. And, I read this post and answered my prior question. oops.

    ReplyDelete