Robert Pavlis

Calculating the PPM of Nitrogen in Your Fertilizer

How much fertilizer do you use? In North America, it is common to reply with something like “1/8 tsp of a 20-6-12 fertilizer. The problem with this answer is that it is difficult to compare the amount to someone using, for example, 1/4 tsp of 7-3-5 fertilizer.

Are either of these close to the recommended amount of 100 ppm nitrogen?

It is important to compare apples with apples and the best way to do this is to report and discuss fertilizer in ppm units. It is easy to do, it will make gardening communication much more useful and it will give you better insight into your fertilizer use.

several houseplants with a lady watering them — How strong is this fertilizer? source: Depositphotos

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Save Money Growing Your Own Food

This question was asked in our Facebook Group: “How can I utilize my garden to save money on groceries? My garden always costs me way more than the amount of food I get from it.”

That is a great question and in this post, I’ll look at ways to keep costs down in the vegetable garden.

girl in garden picking carrots — Carrots are easy to grow, source: Depositphotos

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How Does Light Affect Streptocarpus?

Streptocarpus are becoming popular houseplants and for good reason. They are relatively easy to grow, they don’t need high light and they bloom all year long in the right conditions.

How much light do they need?

Small plant with dozens of purple flowers which have a yellow center. — Streptocarpus RP Sassy Angel, bred by Robert Pavlis

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Are You Paying Too Much for Fertilizer?

Fertilizer prices have gone up quite a bit in the last few years and that is especially true for commercial gardening products. There is also a wide range of prices for similar looking products.

Are the higher prices worth it? Are you paying too much?

In this post, I’ll show you a simple way to compare the real cost of fertilizer so that you can make an informed buying decision.

girl pushing a wheel barrow full of money in the garden — Stop wasting your money on fertilizer, source: Depositphotos

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Do Stressed Plants Cry?

A recent post by the New York Times said “When some plants are dehydrated or under some other form of stress, they cry a mournful melody made of ultrasonic clicks” referring to some new research that collected sounds from stressed plants. CBS News reported that “Plants emit a “rather noisy” cry for help when under stress”. Can plants really cry?

Scientists have also tested moths to see if they can use these sounds to distinguish between healthy plants and those under stress.

Leaf showing water droplets at the margins — A crying plant? No, it’s guttation – see below

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Native Garden Myths

There is a trend towards a more native gardening style and in general that is good for the environment and wildlife diversity. However, this has led to a number of myths about this style of gardening and many people are now over-hyping its benefits. What does science tell us about native wildlife gardens?

closeup of a meadow with grasses and white daisies — Wildlife garden, source: Depositphotos

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What is a Perched Water Table?

The term perched water table is being used more and more in gardening circles. What is it and how do you control it?

It’s a phenomena found in pots and containers and can end up rotting plant roots. It should be understood by every gardener.

drawing of a flower pot with the lower section marked blue and called perched water table — Perched Water Table forms at the bottom of all pots and containers

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How to Identify and Get Rid of Fungus Gnats

Fungus gnats – the little buggers that find your houseplants. They love to visit seedlings and can even infest your larger houseplants. They fly all over the house and drive gardeners crazy. The first step in getting rid of them is to understand their life cycle. Knowing how they live will help you avoid common mistakes that make them worse.

Black fly sitting on a leaf — black fungus gnat sitting on a leaf, source: gailhampshire

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Do Your Plants Need More Silicon?

One of the hottest new additives for plants is silicon, which is also incorrectly called silica. It is claimed to reduce pests, improve growth and fend off diseases such as powdery mildew. Although there is some truth to the claims, there is also a lot of misinformation in the gardening community.

wilting house plant with yellow leaves — Stressed plant looking for help, source: Depositphotos

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Do Determinate Tomatoes & Beans Exist?

I am sure you have heard of determinate tomatoes and beans. I have known about them for years and knew they formed bushes and produced all of their fruit at one time. After that, they stop growing.

Turns out that most of the things I thought I knew about determinate plants is wrong! Not only that, but 99.9% of the gardening information about determinate plants online, in books, in seed catalogs and even Master Gardening Groups is incorrect.

Why should you care? This myth can cause you to grow the wrong type of vegetable.

A tomato plant showing both main stems and side branches. — Determinate tomato (Tiny Tim), black line is the main stem, blue and red lines are side branches. The blue stem clearly shows the terminal flower cluster. It is late August in zone 5 and new tomatoes are still forming. Grown in DWC hydroponics.

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Myths About F1 Hybrid Seeds – Are They Sterile?

There seems to be a lot of confusion about F1 hybrid seeds. Here is the truth about some common myths.

Oversized tomato leaning agaisnt a white car — Giant F1 Tomato Hybrid, Depositphotos

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Top Garden Myths of all Time – 20 Million Visitors

Last week we reached the 20 million visitor mark on this blog and I want to thank all of you for supporting this site.

The very first post was called, What Does Organic Mean, and it was posted on September 6, 2012. I was getting fed up with all the myths I was seeing in gardening literature and online and thought that I might be able to change a few minds. At the time, I figured I had enough material for about 100 myths. I have now posted 688 articles containing some 2,000 myths and have another 326 drafts started. I won’t run out of material any time soon!

I’d like to thank you for reading my posts and I want to ask for your help. Go to your favorite social media outlet and post a link to this post. Let others know how much you like this site. Let’s get to 30 million soon.

To celebrate I thought I would go back in time and review some of the most important articles.

fireworks with 20 million visitors written across them — 20 Million Visits to Garden Myths – Time to Celebrate

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