7 Common Gardening Myths a Pro Gardener Wants You to Kick This Year

You Need a Lot of Space to Grow Vegetables

When you picture a vegetable garden in your mind's eye, you may see a large expanse with long rows of crops or huge squash vines sprawling carelessly in all directions.

Indeed, vegetables such as winter squash do take up a lot of space. But it is a myth that you even need a garden plot (in the conventional sense) to grow many types of vegetables. Urban gardeners with no yards to speak of often grow vegetables in containers.

You Can't Garden on Land With Inadequate Soil

Soil can be inadequate for our gardening needs in many ways, including the following:

• It can be low in fertility
• It can be soggy
• It can be compacted

Fortunately, it is a myth that any of these circumstances make it impossible to garden. In each case, one answer is to install a raised bed.

Compost Piles Attract Rats

It is a gardening myth that compost piles will necessarily attract rats or any other truly problematic pests. It is true that the vegetable kitchen scraps you put in your compost bin may draw, for example, opossums and birds. But these animals are unlikely to cause you problems.

If you do find too many rodents visiting your pile, you may want to use a repellent: Some gardeners, for example, apply peppermint essential oil to cotton balls and place the cotton balls in open glass containers adjacent to the compost bin.

Let experience guide you and make adjustments along the way. If you find that eggshells or large quantities of stale bread attract rats, stop putting those particular items in the compost; then you should be all right.

You Can Eliminate Weed-Control Chores With Landscape Fabric

There is a place for landscape fabric, but it is a myth that you can totally eliminate weed-control chores with it. One problem with landscape fabric is that you need to protect it from UV rays by covering it with mulch.

But a bark mulch, for example, will eventually decompose. At that point, it essentially becomes a soil that weed seeds will sprout in.

If you neglect such an area for too long, you will find that the weeds' roots will have penetrated right into the landscape fabric. That makes for a real mess to deal with, should you ever decide to revitalize the area.

So don't just lay down landscape fabric and mulch and then forget the area: monitor it for weeds, and pull any weeds as soon as you see them.

The Best Time to Prune Shrubs Is During Dormancy

This is a case of a myth that has a kernel of truth to it. Indeed, depending on the circumstances, the dormant period can be an ideal time for pruning.

It is less likely that plant diseases will exploit the open wound left from pruning during the dormant period, for example.

But this falls into the "gardening myth" category because it is an over-generalization. Informed pruning requires you to proceed on a plant-by-plant basis.

If you prune early bloomers during the dormant period, for example, you will be removing flower buds and depriving yourself of spring flowers.

Struggling Plants Need More Fertilizer

Plants can struggle for many reasons. Your garden may have insufficient drainage or the wrong soil pH for them, etc. In such cases, applying fertilizer will not solve the problem.

A related gardening myth is that if some fertilizer is good, more is better. Excessive fertilizer can actually harm your plants.

Plants With Wilting Leaves Need More Water

It is a gardening myth that the presence of wilted leaves on a plant necessarily signals insufficient irrigation. Other factors can cause leaves to wilt.

Fungal diseases are often the culprit when you see leaf wilt on your plants. Unless you address the disease problem, no amount of watering will revive your plants.

In fact, overwatering may have contributed to the problem in the first place. Fungi thrive in moist conditions, and improper watering techniques can offer an open invitation to fungal invasions.