I love social media. In between the selfies and cat pictures, it can be a truly amazing way of connecting people across the planet with similar interests. However, for every ingenious gardening tip based on great evidence that I see as I scroll down the feeds, there does seems to be an equal number of claims that simply don’t stack up. In fact, in my experience, some of the most commonly shared ones are just straight-up fallacies. With that in mind, here’s some simple science to help you sift the facts from fiction with three of the commonest far-fetched claims.
Lady peppers are sweeter
According to the internet, you can tell the “gender” of a bell pepper by counting the number of lobes or bumps at the base of a fruit. “Female” ones have four or more lobes and are the sweetest, while bitter “males” possess only three.
While there are such things as male and female plants, and even male and female parts of the same flower, there is no such thing as gender (or sex) in fruit. That would imply that fruit sexually reproduce with each other. They don’t. They are just a fleshy package that contains the end product of sexual reproduction, the seeds.
The number of lobes at the base of a pepper is determined largely by genetics, but growing conditions can have an impact, too. There is no evidence that four-lobed types are consistently sweeter, either. So save your time inspecting!
If you want sweeter peppers, grow them in a sunnier spot, thin the fruit out to concentrate the plants’ energies and eat them fully ripe (red, orange or yellow) rather than unripe (green).
Perk up plants with cola and Viagra
The meme machine says pouring all manner of substances on plants, from cola to Viagra, will help boost their growth. Cola is essentially a solution of sugar and acid mixed with water. Poured neat on to plants, rather than boosting their growth the concentration of these substances can actually damage plant roots – so much so in fact that sugary fizzy drinks can, in fact, be an effective weedkiller!
While there is some good evidence that plants can take up sugar through their roots and use this to fuel their growth, this would need to be at a much lower concentration to avoid damaging them. A dilute sugar solution would not only be cheaper and more environmentally friendly, but much more effective than fizzy pop.
As for Viagra… Needless to say there is absolutely no evidence for this. Perhaps it isn’t necessary to point out that introducing prescription drugs to the environment is not a great idea and that’s before we even consider the price tag!
Plant rose cuttings in potatoes
The best way of taking rose cuttings is to stick the bottom end into fresh potatoes and bury the whole lot. This was such a weird idea I just had to try it out. Unsurprisingly, with their cut end not exposed to growing media all you get is dead rose twigs and potato plants sprouting the next year. Do the exact same thing, just without the spuds.
Email James at james.wong@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @Botanygeek
