S3E8 Bad garden tips on social media - The Wisconsin Vegetable Gardener radio show

Replay of The Wisconsin Vegetable Gardener Radio Show from 4-20-19
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In segment 2 Joey and Holly talk about how bad garden tips on Social media.

Mounting little planters, vertical strawberry, rain gutters, etc - little soil
Potato box
Planting in egg shells/egg cartons
Seeds that seem too good to be true
Companion plantings
Volcano mulching

Stop slugs having a ball
The tip Copper is reputed to repel slugs, so take an old bowling ball (you’ve got one of those lying around, right?), glue pennies (or 2p pieces) to it, so they cover the surface, and use it as a decorative garden object that doubles as a slug barrier. (And if you want it to shine, soak the coins in cola first.)

The catch Not only is it debatable how decorative this actually looks, it’s also hard to be convinced by its efficacy as an anti-slug device. These days, British 1p and 2p “coppers” are made from copper-plated steel, plus there is at best only patchy evidence that copper repels slugs in the first place. Dr Ian Bedford, head of entomology at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, has lab-tested copper slug repellers and found no evidence that they work. And even if copper did dissuade slugs, you’d need a whole bowling alley’s worth of coin-covered balls to have any meaningful effect. As Bedford points out, “You put a bowling ball in the middle of your lawn, but what’s to stop them eating the plants in your border?”

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The alternative Go ahead and make your ball; just don’t expect it to deter slugs. For that, use a biological control such as Nemaslug or a nightly slug patrol.

Nail those blue hydrangeas
The tip Gather up those rusty nails from the back of the shed and put them in the ground around hydrangeas to correct an iron deficiency, increase acidity in the soil and, in the process, turn their blooms from pink to blue.

The catch None of it works. Here’s a mini-science lesson from Guy Barter, the RHS’s chief horticultural adviser: “Almost all soils contain a lot of iron, but it becomes unavailable to plants – especially ericaceous ones such as rhododendrons – in alkaline soils,” he says. “Adding iron nails to alkaline soil merely slowly adds a very small amount of iron to the pool of chemically locked-up iron in the soil. It is soil aluminium that influences hydrangea flower colour, and aluminium is most available to plants in the acid soils associated with blue hydrangeas.”

The alternative Add sulphur dust, not nails, to soil to increase acidity. Aluminium sulphate, often sold as hydrangea-blueing compound, is the best product to change flower colour in hydrangeas – try Vitax’s Hydrangea Colourant. Plants with iron deficiency suffer yellowing patches between the veins. Barter recommends treating them with chelated iron, an organic compound that prevents lock-up in the soil, allowing plants to absorb the iron they need.

Dish it out to the weeds
The tip Kill weeds by spraying them with a homemade brew of vinegar, epsom salts and washing-up liquid mixed with water. This mix of ingredients commonly found in our homes is touted as safer for pets and children than shop-bought weed treatments.

The catch Home remedies such as this are often billed as “all-natural”, but have you looked at the ingredients of washing-up liquid recently? Plus, it’s illegal under EU (continued)