It never ceases to amaze me the amount of incomplete, misleading, and just plain inaccurate information that’s out there on gardening, most especially gardening with crops. The very most common thing is for someone to write a book (or site) where they presume that what works for them will work for everyone, and thus writes it in such a way as if it is widely applicable when in reality they are writing about what works for their specific climate or their very specific conditions. I appreciate it when authors are clear about whether what they really mean is a generalization or something for their specific whatever, and especially if they note what different things are better for different areas.
But there is also a lot of misinformation out there about specific plants/crops. I believe most writers don’t intentionally mean to do it; I think at least part of the problem is, as many serious gardeners have complained, that a lot of books on growing crops seem to include many things which the author appears to have never actually grown, but be writing about based on what they’ve read or heard from others. Some of the things I so appreciated about Frank Tozer’s books on organic veggie growing (which I read last month, as I mentioned here) were that he talked a lot about his own experiences growing things and noted both where others’ experiences might be different in different areas/conditions, and where he didn’t have a lot of experience growing a particular crop or didn’t really like the taste of it and thus mostly grew it for a family member.
Often when I read a crop book, I get the distinct impression that the author hasn’t actually grown one of my favorite plants themselves, because I can’t imagine how they could say what they say about it if they ever have. A prime example is runner beans. Because runner beans are perennial where they are hardy, many authors make the leap to saying that they love super hot and humid weather. Now if that were really the case, why on earth would the be by far the most popular green bean in Britain rather than the most popular green bean in Florida? We aren’t far enough into global warming yet for Britain to be really hot and really humid! Many people in Britain have only bought air conditioners within the past few years, and there are a good number that still just use fans in summertime. What exasperates me the most is when I read a book that accurately states where runner beans originated – in the cool, damp, misty mountains of Central America – and still says, “Because of this, they love hot, humid tropical weather!” In reality, there’s a reason why runner beans have been doing so well here this summer – they love the damp, chilly (for us) weather we’ve been having. People who planted their runner beans earlier than I did already have plants smothered in flowers.
(As an aside, I’ve found it interesting that my recent post “Runner beans” has garnered a rather obscene number of hits [for this blog's statistical averages] already. I guess most people who write about them write under the British terms “broad beans” or “horse beans,” since they’re so much more popular as a crop in Britain than here [here in the US, they are usually used as ornamentals], and thus my use of “Runner beans” for the title has led people who search for that term to find that post quite easily.)
Here’s another example that I’ve discovered since beginning this post yesterday. Many writers use the term “germinate at” when what they really mean is “ideal temperature for germination is.” For example, many people say that cowpeas germinate once the soil is warm. Now, as you know if you’ve been reading this blog regularly, it’s been quite cool here for June and July, with temperatures more like April and early May. For example, right now it is 63 F, and yesterday was pretty much the same. And the soil is generally going to be colder than the air around it, most especially if it is saturated like it has become here (we’ve moved on from a Flash Flood Watch to a Flash Flood Warning because we’ve had so much rain the ground literally just can’t hold any more). But my cowpeas/southern peas (and lima/butter beans and tepary beans and gram beans and moth beans, all legumes primarily grown in hot regions, be it low desert or tropical/subtropical) are sprouting! I noticed late yesterday that they had already begun to sprout. So, while they definitely have an ideal soil temperature for germination, like any plant does, it is not a hard and fast rule like it is often presented to be. I think that again this comes from people making the leap from one fact to another. Because cowpeas love hot weather, people assume that they will only germinate once the weather is hot. But just because there is a causal relationship between two things, that doesn’t mean that it is corollary, nor that just because it’s most common it means it’s always the case.
And these sorts of things are why I stress to new gardeners that while it is good to consult with others in your area partially so that you can learn from their mistakes and get an idea of what crops/flowers/etc are most common and thus probably likely to be successful where you are (or at the least, be good first things to try), and good to read gardening books/sites to help you learn, it is also good to not assume something is true just because it’s “common wisdom.”
