Fallacies, fakes and fundamentals

 Well not sure if I'm going to cover all that but here goes.

Fallacies of gardening: 

Only use organic compost in the garden or you'll kill your plants!  Wrong!

That is the 'best' thing to use but not the only thing. Potting soil will work just have to be prepared for the perlite (white crunchy stuff) to float up to the surface. It's not meant for being in the ground but if you need to amend and don't have the money to go out and get compost..if you've got a bag of that or only need a little soil to put in seedlings..go for it!  The plants don't care what they grow in as long as it covers the bases for nutrition and water requirements.

Fakes in gardening: 

There are people fakes, plant fakes and animal fakes like this:

Do scarecrows work? Not that I have seen but I've never needed to use one. You'd have to ask a farmer or the person that owns that lovely garden . Do fake owls work to keep birds away? Ahem.

Many people came in and asked for a fake owl to keep the birds away, here's the problem...owls are nocturnal hunters. Pigeons don't care, crows will try and chase it or hawks away but regular birds are not fooled in any way. It doesn't move, it's out in the open and it doesn't make any sound therefore it's 'dead' and not a threat, carry on your business.

Plant fakes... well I could take that as people  who push certain plants for various reason or fake plants that look so realistic even experts are fooled. I know. It happened to me. I have suggested several times that people use fake plants in a window box instead of real when they're situation is not right. Like a woman wanted to grow a screen vine/plant on a balcony in a small window box because they didn't have a lot of room. 

Right. I suggested to her to look in a craft store for some tall foliage plants that could be used as a screen. She looked at me as her eyes went big and said, 'That's brilliant!' A lot of people don't like 'fake' plants because of our memories of them from the 60's, being faded after a year because of the plastic they were made out of. I never knew the Tarzan tree in Disneyland was fake until I was an adult! Well I didn't consciously realize it until I returned there after almost a decade and looked it and thought, 'what a sad looking fake tree!' by then Disneyland was 25 years old and that may not seem like a lot but for a huge fake tree in the weather and sun constantly..it takes a toll.

Then there was a time when a customer brought in a succulent looking plant for us to identify saying it came in an arrangement she had gotten as a gift. We pored over it wondered at the leaves for almost 45 minutes, finally took it to one of our succulent guys and he looks at it, felt the leaf and said, 'it's fake'. We all laughed and felt very embarrassed but the customer was just as floored and impressed that if fooled all but one 'expert'.

Fundamentals of gardening are what works for you. Journal what you do, what you use, what happened and what didn't work. Keep track of it for following years to watch for.

Honestly, you can take all the information, experience, ideas and methods that are out there then mix and match to what works for your time, soil, location and effort. I have chronicled my less than spectacular results with all my knowledge and yet I'm not discouraged. I know what my situation is and my capabilites. It isn't an ideal situation but I tried and frankly got the results that were unexpected and yet disappointing in some corners and head scratching in others. I call it 'persistence of nature'. There were no noticeable nutrients in the soil and yet the tomato thrived. The zucchini was in a prime spot and yet gave very little fruit. Trial and error all the way and hoping I can get some income soon to get restarted on the garden for this year as soon as the sun angles a little higher.