Welcome to Garden Myths – We are the Garden Myth Busters!
Our Goal: to provide correct gardening information and make you a better gardener.
Our Process: We research topics and examine scientific studies to bust gardening myths. Then we provide FREE blog posts.
Our Experience:
The author of most posts, Robert Pavlis, has 50 years of gardening experience, is an award winning author of 11 gardening books, holds an M.Sc. in chemistry and biochemistry, teaches numerous gardening courses and has written articles for many popular magazines such as Mother Earth News.

Robert has just won the Independent Publisher Book Award for Science with his book, Plant Science for Gardeners.
Our Guarantee:
- The information on this site is more accurate than most other gardening sites. If you find an error and let us know in the comments, we’ll correct it immediately.
- None of the information is created by AI – we prefer real people.
- All of the information is science based.
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Mr. Pavlis,
I am new to hydroponic gardening. Really new… as in yesterday. I also work long hours and don’t have the time nor huge space in my little shoe box apartment to grow many plants. I started with countertop hydroponic kits. I am having moderate success. However, I am getting so confused. Is the lighting good enough, did I plant the seed to low in the sponge, do I really need purified water, how often should I put nitrogen in the tank, is the unit large enough to hold plants? Could you throw me in the right direction? I watched a few of your videos on Youtube, and they are helpful… however, I am still not sure I am doing this “right.”
The topic is very confusing. The answers depend very much on which plants you are growing. Counter top hydroponics work fine for low light, smaller plants. They don’t work well for high light plants or ones that are large because they don’t provide enough light to lower leaves.
I did some testing that is still not published, and found that EC does not change very much as plants grow. It is best to top up the container with hydroponic fertilizer.
Hello! I have been enjoying your videos on Youtube- you have a wonderful voice which makes your videos not just informative, but a real pleasure. Keep up the good work!
And I was thinking about how potting soil could be labeled “sterile” when of course it isn’t. I found this definition for “sterilization” in Garden Terms by Amateur Gardening (published by Hamlyn,1995): “treatment to destroy weed seeds, insects, and fungal spores”. So that makes a bit more sense! :^)
Hi, I am interested in getting the purple tomatoes (GMO) developped by Cathie Martin showed in the interview with Nathan Pumplin that Robert Pavlis presented on youtube.
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