Anyone care to share the most amusing or bizarre bad gardening tip they’ve been given?
Mine was an “environmentally friendly” method for killing pocket gophers–pour a box of dehydrated potato flakes in their tunnel. The gopher would supposedly eat them, then they would expand when the gopher drank water and cause it to explode.
That it’s impossible to grow watermelons in my area since the nights are too cold. Turns out we actually grow the finest watermelons in our climate.
That planting into straight compost will make carrots fork, and other veg won’t grow happily. I have raised beds filled with straight compost and everything grows happily, I get big straight carrots.
My mom has a constant stream of advice on how growing organically is dangerous.
“Only water deeply once a week” - guaranteed to kill many raises bed and container plants
“Compost your kitchen scraps!” - unless you have space for a yard of compost and are willing to manage it properly its just not worth it IMO
I am getting rid of my compost pile this weekend! What a pain, and for tiny bits of compost.
I got rid of mine several years ago and started burying all of it directly in the garden. No more soldier flies flying off with my nitrogen.
I compost all my kitchen scraps in a tumbler. It gets to 130F or higher. I get a new load of compost every 2 weeks like clockwork. I don’t understand why composting is considered bad advice. No flies, gnats or rodents as it is raised above ground and sealed.
Do you buy compost rather than make your own?
I usually need a large amount of compost all at once, at least a yard at a time. I also don’t want to deal with sifting out the unfinished material. I also have limited yard space.
My township used to provide it for free, but now that my soil is built up I really don’t have any need for compost. The woodchip mulch I add every year does the job.
The best part about kitchen scrap compost is that you dont need to sift it at all. The particles are all small.
Not exactly garden advice but saw a website advising that if you go to a “U-pick” seller that you should always leave a few fruits on each bush or tree or it’s considered rude. Duh, thanks let’s leave 5 blueberries on each bush.
Once for black rot on grapes a local nursery suggested “kill them all” meaning the grape plants as it was incurable. I sprayed with captan and immunox instead and have not seen blackrot again nearly 5 years now. I have not sprayed grapes in 5 years. Found out some grapes are hosts such as red canadice. Grapes such as concord or seedless concord are highly resistant.
A tumbler sounds like the way to go, sounds easier to manage. My outdoor pile never seems to heat up long enough to fully break things down. I just don’t get much out of it but smell. Here we can load up as much free municipal compost as we want but I am just about to the point of not needing it anymore and just using wood chips as someone else has said.
How much compost are you getting out of each tumble?
“You’ll never be able to grow fruits here, well, maybe pears”. Advice given by a nursery worker while I was looking at their fruit trees!
I’ve dug deep’ish holes and buried kitchen scraps. No issues. The worms seem to like it.
Hitchhikers take awhile to compost. 
I don’t really listen to anyone so i don’t think i’ve been given much bad advice. I’m sure i’ve given it. “Oh sure…peaches…they do great in Wisconsin…buy a dozen”…
Welp dimitri, can’t say that advice, as given to me, was bad or amusing. I water my potted lemons weekly until there’s >50% by volume in leachate. Also, toss every discarded produce, bread, rice, coffee grounds, etc. into a tumbler along with all the vegetation from my property. Space isn’t an issue, but I wouldn’t claim to be managing it properly. Hence, tumbler. Actually, two. One 30gal retail unit that finally succumbed to our harsh climate that was to be replaced with a 55gal custom diy special. This season saw both used and the larger is cooling off with a week to go. Good timing because the non-tumbling tumbler is at capacity.
Not really bad advice received from “someone,” but after searching for pruning info, online mostly, all that could be found was to give it a snip in early spring and another mid-summer for wisteria. Ya, amusing theory. Only if I feel like taking half the day for one espaliered vine. In practice, more like once monthly, minimum, with Dec-Feb off. If it was cut back only twice a year it would be impossible to enter the house through the front door!
How can you tell the difference between a male and female bell pepper? There is no such thing as male and female bell peppers.
Mine was not for garden but for mice killer.I bought a big bag of mice bait trying to kill the mice inside the house. This was second bag of mice bait I bought. After the muce finished first one , there are still more mice , don’t know how many but several for sure. Then I google the mice bait ingredients in different brand and looked at the bag I bought. It is said active ingredient are corn meal and salt😱
