Book Review:
The Truth about Garden Remedies:
  What works, What doesn’t, and Why
By Jeff Gillman

Reviewed by Luurt Nieuwenhuis

The Truth about Garden Remedies is a book that is sorely needed in the gardening world. Just as there are internet web sites to illuminate and debunk urban legends, here comes a book that does the same thing for the backyard gardener gurus. The subtitle tells it all: What Works, What doesn’t, and Why.

There is a large body of gardening “folklore” that is being continually repeated and renewed in today’s popular culture. All sorts of home brews, folk remedies and secret recipes to make your garden grow better than anyone else’s, have less bugs than anyone else’s, and which are supposed to be environmentally “friendlier” than modern horticulture provides.

The author takes us on a journey through many of the common conceptions of home remedies for gardening problems: he tells us what they are, whether or not they work, explains WHY and of what the remedy actually does to our plants. In some instances, he explains what his simple first-person experiments were done to verify the remedy. In other cases he provides a list of references to the technical literature at the end of the book.

An example is in order: Powdery mildew and a baking soda spray. Plain water sprayed once a week was just as effective as having baking soda added to the water, which is to say slight. Adding some oil to the water, whether with baking soda or without, improved the mildew control markedly. Vinegar in water was effective for mildew control: The stronger the solution was, the more effective the resultant control, but the greater the collateral plant. Vinegar’s effectiveness does not extend to other plant diseases such as black spot on roses.

Another entry discusses microrrhizal additives to boost root development and plant growth. Microrrhizal fungi are a well documented feature of many plants. They benefit the host plant by scrounging nutrients that the plant can use in exchange for sugars that the plant manufactures. How necessary they are in soils where plenty of nutrients already exist is questionable. But what is much more questionable is the efficacy of store-bought fungal additives which will often not perform as advertised. Besides, growing a particular fungus from spores or small fragments of mycelium and keeping them healthy, especially ones that are obligate symbionts, is no easy task.

The Truth about Garden Remedies: What works, What doesn’t, and Why includes major sections on fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, and pesticides, as well as water and biostimulants (remember willow extract?). The discussions are thoughtful and researched or tested by easily repeatable experiments. There are conclusions for each of the remedies that explain what it will mean for your plants if you use it.

You will doubtless find a number of garden remedies that you’ve heard of or read about in recent years documented in this book. You will probably find some that you’ve tried. See why your results weren’t always what you wanted. This thoroughly delightful book will make you a less gullible and hence better and gardener.

Jeff Gillman has degrees in entomology and horticulture. He holds a PhD and teaches in the Department of Horticultural Science at the University of Minnesota, specializing in pesticide use and nursery management