Myths

[Grow 4 Food]

Here is an intersting one for all to add to and read.

Let us hear your oddest heard (and tried) gardening myths.

Like for example keeping pregnant women away for any plant that vines because it will kill it (obviously not true).

So now is your job, Let us hear your myths - busted or not!

 

[rockytopsis]

Step Mom would never let me in the kitchen when she was canning and it was my time of the month as she said it would ruin what ever she was canning.

 

[Grow 4 Food]

Only one? Seriously? I thought gardeners were some of the most superstitious people out there?

 

[robbobbin]

Sorry-I've racked my brain and can't come up with any myths...maybe I believe them all-tell me it isn't so!

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Well I have one, but I don't think it is odd, per se, it is more of a Murphy's Law kind of thing:

If you hang your laundry outside, it is more likely to rain.

 

[patandchickens]

Huh. It is a myth that you can have the right size garden. All gardens (she says grandly) are either too small or too large. Sometimes simultaneously, depending whether you're looking at a catalog or surveying the weeds.

The value of double-digging is, afaik, pretty much of a myth, at least in most soils (possible exception, very deep but near-pure-sand soils).

Anything purported to repel deer or be immune to being eaten by deer turns out, sooner or later, to have been a myth

Also, the "average year" is a myth. EVERY year has weird weather conditions of its own.


Pat

 

[robbobbin]

double digging???

 

[OaklandCityFarmer]

My grandfather is half Yaqui Indian and has a lot of myths and legends. Some I remember.

If you see an owl the night before you can't plant seeds the next day because the owl will tell the coyote which will come and steal your seeds.

A caterpillar crawling up a tree in the morning means rain in the evening. And a caterpillar crawling up a tree in the evening means no rain for a week.

Crows flying from the woods to the north in the spring is a sign of a bad harvest.

If a tortoise comes to rest on your property do not disturb it. The tortoise carries the world on it's back and when it comes to rest that means that there will be no earthquakes in your area.

There are tons more but those for now.

 

[Rosalind]

Planting by moon phases. Tried it several years. Made no difference, only resulted in plants that either were set out too late or too early. Of course, planting by the first and last frost dates hasn't helped me much either lately...

Next year I am going to try DH's family's ancient British and Welsh gardening techniques. Well, maybe not the bit where you fertilize the trees with the blood of disemboweled criminals, but the other bits.

 

[Grow 4 Food]

Oh I forgot about moon stuff. My GFIL always said that if the moon was "wrong" when you dug a hole you would have to much or to little dirt to fill in the hole. I always just thought it depended on whether or not you put something in the hole.