Where does science belong in the home garden? Horticulture is a branch of science, and it is filled with information. With pinterest and Facebook, it’s pretty easy to come across gardening recomendations. The information can come from actual research, anecdotal trials or observations, or people just plain making up things.

Turning to professionals can also be a gamble. In the field, there is a huge range of expertise out there: from the mow and blow guys who probably don’t even understand what type of lawn you have, to professors who spend careers researching just what exactly is the best mulch to put down. I’ve been thinking about good horticulturists who are trying to give the best information out there: What advice should they give?

Some home remedies and recommendations are plain untrue; others are extremely misunderstood. Here’s a false one I see all the time: male and female peppers. A good one that is usually misunderstood is vinegar as a weed killer, often portrayed as a safer round-up (an oversimplification and not very accurate). You could go into organic gardening and GMO’s, that have so much misinformation and emotion attached that it’s often hard to get a rational discussion going. There are also recommendations that have loads of research behind them, and are just plain good ideas, like mulching. Getting the right information on things like this is important.

But how about techniques that are not necessarily against science, but just lack research? A lot of permaculture techniques fall into this category, like hugelkultur, and legume support species. Ideally, everything could have extensive, multiple research studies, but it’s not going to happen. Without good concrete information should something that is based on anecdotal trials or observation be recommended? And if something is recommended based on purely anecdotal evidence, is it wrong?

For Extension agents, Master Gardeners, and anyone portraying themselves as a horticulturist they should stick to the science. But I don’t think they have to disregard anecdotal recommendations (unless they are just wrong), just portray them as anecdotal: something to try, not a sure-fire solution.

If you are trying something out to see if it’s working, why not make a mini-research project out of it? Compare it against a control. I love to experiment in my garden and try out new things, and home gardens are the perfect place for this. Our gardens are small and we aren’t trying (usually) to get a profit out of it. What I do often neglect, is to not only experiment, but include controls and ways to measure so I can actually know if something I’m trying is working or not.

I love getting the right information, but I also don’t like it when I see anecdotal or pseudoscience put down, not because it’s wrong, but because there isn’t any research. We don’t stay away from the unknown in science. We embrace it and experiment on it until we know if it’s right or not.

Science belongs in the home garden. And it’s not by following tried and true, already proven recommendations. It’s by trying new, radical, and unknown options in a controlled way so we can gain more information.

I believe that right now that there is a huge rift in the information we can get. On one side we have the scientist telling us to do what has been proven to be scientifically correct. On the other hand are people who disregard science and simply tell us what sounds good. What we need is people to inform us what is proven, what is wrong, and what is experimental. And then not only provide us that information, but provide the means necessary to test out experimental information, if desired, in a controlled way so we know if it actually works or not.