Interesting NEW Book

[MsCowpea]

Though not specifically written about tomatoes this book is chalk full of all the controversial topics argued about on all the tomato forums.

THE TRUTH ABOUT GARDEN REMEDIES -WHAT WORKS, WHAT DOESN'T, and WHY. By Jeff Gillman.

Written by a Mn. Extension agent he looks into numerous practices and tries to explain whether or not they work and why.

Examples;

egg shells, epsom salts, mycorrhizae, garlic, mouthwash,
gypsum, beneficial insects, silicon, seaweed, etc, etc. etc.

You may be a little bummed out if your favorite remedy is panned but at least he says to experiment and see if your preceived positive results can be verified.

Most surprising thing to me is about mouthwash as a fungicide (CORRECTION--said it was more effective than all the other organic concoction but it may cause some damage too. For powdery mildew he prefers a commerical fungicide) and seaweed foliar sprays (he doesn't like these much--WHAT???? CAN'T BE!!!!!- oh well, set up an experiment.)

The only gripe I have about the book is the print layout--remedies should have been highlighted and then discussed--the way it is they all seem to blend together --you will see what I mean if you get the book.

I also found one of his experiments to be a bit lopsided when he supported time-release fertilizer over buttermilk--I don't use buttermilk but it wasn't a fair comparison. Would have been better to use Miracle gro liquid fertilizer once to compare to using buttermilk once. Know this doesn't make sense unless you know the context but all in all I liked the book very much.