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Summary
Summary
Can beer make plants grow? How about buttermilk? Or music--classical or rock? Are you sure about planting trees in deep holes? And how about chasing insects with hot sauce and stopping slugs with eggshells?
Whether in ancient books, on television, or in gardening publications, remedies for all your garden woes are here for the taking: the challenge is to know what will work and what won't.
Fearlessly conducting original experiments and harvesting wisdom from the scientific literature, horticulturalist Jeff Gillman assesses new and historic advice and reveals the how and why, and sometimes the why not, for more than 100 common and uncommon gardening practices. The results will surprise even experienced gardeners.
Author Notes
Jeff Gillman Ph.D. is an associate professor in the Department of Horticultural Science at the University of Minnesota
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
With graduate degrees in entomology and horticulture, Gillman brings scientific rigor to the topic of commercial, homemade and "traditional" garden remedies. Eschewing the received knowledge of "garden gurus"-albeit admitting that he is one-he exhorts readers to "[s]earch for the why behind everything you do for your plants." His concise review of factors affecting plant growth and development provides the backdrop for chapters that evaluate fertilizers, soil and media amendments, water, biostimulants, pesticides, protectants and other remedies. Within each category, Gillman describes the practice, explains the theory behind it, reveals the truth and describes what all that means to the home gardener. His findings about methods involving such materials as buttermilk, coffee grounds, humic acid, hellebore, silicon and salt are based on scientific literature, which is cited throughout, as well as many original experiments. Never didactic or preachy, Gillman takes pleasure in testing techniques for treating plants and urges readers to "[d]ivide off a section of plants in your garden just for experimenting and have fun with them." Gillman teaches gardeners to think about what they do, know why they're doing it and observe the results, trusting their knowledge and experience over claims made by companies, "experts" or garden folklorists. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Gillman, from the Department of Horticultural Science at the University of Minnesota, is a real life Mr. Smarty Pants when it comes to gardening. But don't let that throw you off-his books are quite good. Direct and unfussy, Organic Gardening presents a balanced take on both organic and synthetic approaches to enriching and fertilizing soil and controlling undesirables: weeds, diseases, insects, and pests. Though Gillman tends toward "natural" solutions, including traps, resistant strains of plant, and distributing beneficial insects, he feels that synthetics, used properly and responsibly, have their place (except in the case of pesticides-those he's decidedly against). Garden Remedies is similarly excellent and covers just about any remedy you've ever heard, from beer for attracting (and drowning) slugs (it works, just don't let slug lovers catch wind), to using ammonia as lawn fertilizer (No! Bad idea!). Just like every dude's fave web site, Snopes.com, Gillman provides a brief, well-written history of each practice and the intent behind it before discussing its effectiveness. He also tackles insecticides, fertilizers, fungicides, and herbicides. Dudes will learn that hanging soap or a tuft of hair from a stocking in your garden will indeed repel deer, because these things reek of "anti-nature" and freak the deer out.-Douglas Lord, Connecticut State Lib., Middletown (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Citrus peels have been suggested as a cure for ants and as a source of natural insecticidal compounds. E. A. Back and C. E. Pemberton showed in 1915 that the oils from citrus fruits can affect insects, but those oils haven't really been used for insect control until relatively recently. The important event in the rediscovery of citrus peels was when entomologist Craig Sheppard recognized the effects of an orange hand soap on ants (Olkowski et al. 1991), and now this natural product is found in both commercial insecticidal sprays and in home-brewed remedies. To control ants, do-it-yourself guides sometimes recommend placing citrus peels over an ant mound ... Excerpted from The Truth about Garden Remedies: What Works, What Doesn't and Why by Jeff Gillman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Table of Contents
Preface | p. 9 |
The garden gurus and me | |
A little bit about format | |
Product groupings | |
Acknowledgments | |
Chapter 1 Basics | p. 15 |
Elements that affect plant growth and development | |
Chapter 2 Fertilizers and Other Soil and Media Amendments | p. 23 |
Ammonia, a quick and easy way to misapply fertilizer | |
Analyzing the ever-changing fertilizer analysis | |
Beer as a fertilizer | |
Buttermilk and other high-protein people foods | |
Chelates | |
Coffee grounds | |
Compost | |
Eggshells | |
Epsom salts | |
Gypsum | |
Lime | |
Liquid, granular, and slow-release fertilizers | |
Micronutrient mixes | |
Organic fertilizers | |
Shampoo and liquid soaps | |
Soda, syrup, and other sugary snacks | |
Sulfur, iron sulfate, aluminum sulfate, and other soil acidifiers | |
Vinegar | |
Putting it all together | |
Chapter 3 Water | p. 69 |
Antitranspirants | |
Gravel for drainage | |
Hydrogels | |
Planting deeply | |
Sponges for water retention | |
Putting it all together | |
Chapter 4 Biostimulants | p. 83 |
Humic acids | |
Indole-3-butyric acid and naphthalene-3-acetic acid | |
Mycorrhizal myths | |
Seaweed extracts | |
Sound for plants | |
Vitamin B-1 | |
Willow diffusate | |
Putting it all together | |
Chapter 5 Insecticides | p. 101 |
Citrus peel | |
Dish soap | |
Forsyth's composition | |
Garlic | |
Hellebore | |
Hot peppers for unwanted guests | |
Nematodes | |
Predators and parasites | |
Tobacco | |
Putting it all together | |
Chapter 6 Fungicides and Other Disease-Control Agents | p. 125 |
Baking soda | |
Compost tea | |
Hydrogen peroxide | |
Mouthwash | |
Silicon and horsetail soup | |
Vinegar as a fungicide | |
Putting it all together | |
Chapter 7 Herbicides | p. 139 |
Brussels sprouts for bad plants | |
Corn gluten meal | |
Mulch the magnificent | |
Salt | |
Vinegar as an herbicide | |
Putting it all together | |
Chapter 8 Other Pesticides and Protectants | p. 151 |
Bagging fruit | |
Beer as a slug killer | |
Deer and rodent repellents from your blender | |
Deer and rodent repellents from the store | |
Eggshells for slug fencing | |
Pruning tar and other wound coatings | |
Tree wrap | |
Water mist for frost protection | |
Putting it all together | |
Chapter 9 Commercial Pesticides | p. 169 |
How pesticides work | |
Choosing a pesticide | |
Chapter 10 Concoctions to be Avoided | p. 179 |
A crazy old remedy | |
A confusion of pH | |
Burn, baby, burn | |
Hitchhikers in the tobacco | |
This will do the job (and more) | |
Chapter 11 Take Home Message | p. 185 |
Appendix 1 Preferred pH of Some Common Landscape Plants | p. 187 |
Appendix 2 Conversion Tables | p. 191 |
Bibliography | p. 192 |
Index | p. 208 |