Scientists used genetic manipulation to add a rabbit gene into a houseplant to increase its ability to remove toxic VOC chemicals from the air in your home. Can these plants improve the air quality in your home?
Will the general public accept GMO houseplants? When can you expect to see this plant-animal-HEPA filter in your local nursery? It has been approved for sale in Canada.
Powdery mildew and black spot are common garden diseases and one of the most common home remedies is a mixture known as the ‘Cornell Formula’, a mixture whose main ingredient is baking soda.
This is an example of how and why myths get started.
In this post I will discuss the Cornell Formula, explain how it got started, and have a look at the efficacy of using baking soda as a DIY fungicide. Does it work? Will it harm your plants? Are there better options?
The bees are in trouble again. If you see one that is exhausted give them a sugar-water mixture which will give them the energy boost they need to get back to the hive. You probably saw this advice on Facebook where it was first posted, and then shared thousands of times. You have just experienced the birth of a new gardening myth.
The image below shows part of the original Facebook post.
Around the middle of July, 2018, the BBC asked Facebook to remove the post since it was fake news, and thankfully, they complied. In fact, I had a hard time finding a copy for this post.
What did Sir David Attenborough really say? Is it a good idea to feed sugar to bees? Do bees get exhausted and need our help? All good questions that will be discussed in this post.
The Guelph Organic Conference is an annual event that attracts organic minded people from across Canada and northern parts of the US. Much of the focus is on farming, producing organic food and smaller backyard operations. This year, I was an invited speaker and talked about Growing Food in Ponds. The publisher of my book, Building Natural Ponds, New Society Publishing, is a sponsor of the event and we wanted to find a topic that would interest organic gardeners and help promote my book. It was an extremely popular topic.
The conference also holds a large Trade Show which gave me the opportunity to speak to a number of vendors. I thought it would be fun and educational to review some of my discussions and observations.
If you are one of my regular readers you will know that I am organically minded, believe in the basic organic philosophies, but I don’t blindly follow all of the dogma that is preached. Unfortunately there are many snake-oil salespeople in the organic movement.
If you spend time understanding the science behind Roundup and glyphosate, it’s active ingredient, you soon realize that this is a safe chemical compared to many other chemicals, even ones liberally used in the home. Why is it then that so many people fear Roundup?
Probably the biggest reason is great promotion by the anti-Roundup and anti-Monsanto crowd. That is one powerful force, that brings one misleading article after another to the attention of a lot of people.
I think that another reason for this fear is our inability to understand very small and very large numbers. A recent research study found glyphosate in natural water systems and I have seen it posted by several people as proof of a real problem that needs to be feared. If these people simply understood small numbers, they would not fear the report or Roundup.
Compost tea is reported to be great for growing plants and some companies even call it a compost tea fertilizer. What is the NPK value of this magic potion?
I started this post about a year ago and at that time there were many products on the market but I could not find one that provided the Compost Tea NPK value. I checked again today and was surprised that the number of compost tea products available is down significantly. Maybe it was too expensive to ship all that water around the country? Maybe it did not work and people stopped buying the product?
Interestingly, the number of commercial DIY kits for making your own tea is up significantly. When you click on Google images for ‘bottles of tea’ you are taken to pages selling kits. Even with kits the same question needs to be asked. What is the NPK value of the tea these kits produce. Very few of the manufacturers I looked at provided such information, but many did say their compost ingredients were the best. Easy to say if you don’t give any data.
Even if you are not interested in compost tea – the following discussion will show you how companies are misleading consumers.
Native bees are apparently in trouble. They are dying by the millions. We all need to plant more flowers to try and save the bees. Turns out that much of this is based on false information. We don’t actually know the status of most native bees.
In this post I will look at how this myth got started and discuss some real facts about native bees.
In 2014 I wrote a post called A Garden Myth is Born – Plants Don’t Purify Air, which has become one of my most popular posts. A recent comment on that post about a video by Mr. Kamal Meattle has prompted me to write today about another story related to plants purifying air.
Mr. Kamal Meattle has become well known for a short TED Talk video where he talks about converting an office building in New Delhi, into the cleanest building in India. His secret is the use of air purifying plants.
Anecdotal evidence is everywhere in our daily lives. Most new products depend on it to make sales and most commercials use it to convince you to buy. In gardening, it is a very common way for people to get information about a problem. Go to any gardening social media site and ask about curing something. A dozen people will come back with different cures that they have tried – and THEY ALL WORK!
Baloney!
Why is anecdotal evidence not worth much? Why do we believe it so much? Good questions to ask if you are trying to understand why we have so many garden myths.
Since it is Christmas, I thought it would be appropriate to write about the birth of a myth. Gardening information is full of myths–untruths that seem to take on a life of their own. As part of my effort to understand these myths, I also want to understand how myths get started. The history of most myths has been lost but every once in a while I am able to find evidence that clearly shows how a myth is born.
Understanding how a myth is born can be very educational. It provides insight into how the human mind works. It also trains you to spot future potential myths and to better evaluate the information you are reading. So let’s celebrate this holiday by peering into the start of a myth.
It’s that time of year again, winter is coming. We close the windows and doors of our home to keep out out the cold, and in the process we lock in all kinds of chemical pollutants. Never fear, a few air purifying plants will help with that problem. This must work since all kinds of home magazines, newspapers and web sites tell you it works. Headlines like “the 10 best plants for removing pollutants in your home” appear daily this time of year. How well do plants work at cleaning the air in our home?
Vitamin B1 is that miracle drug that makes all plants grow bigger especially after transplanting. It is added to several different kinds of fertilizer and plant additives. Guess what – it doesn’t work. Photo Source: Farmer Fred Rant The history of this myth is quite interesting and told in detail here. In 1930 a scientist … Read More