Whether you’re looking to save a little money or trying to use natural concoctions instead of synthetic ones, it can be tempting to follow homemade garden recipes. Gardeners claim everything from using beer as a fertilizer to playing music to seedlings. Before you start to gather the ingredients and remedy your yard problems, let’s investigate if these recipes really work. To demystify the following claims, I turned to Jeff Gillman’s book, The Truth about Garden Remedies.

Claim: Beer (or other sugary items) should be diluted and sprayed as fertilizer to enhance plant growth.

Don’t try it! Based on Gillman’s test, the beer caused damage to the plants and increased bad bacteria growth. Plants grown with sugar had similar results. The best use of beer in the yard was to create slug traps, which actually do attract and kill certain breeds of slugs.

Claim: Ordinary dish soap can be an effective insecticide.

I wouldn’t use it. Based on numerous studies, diluted dish soap can kill various insects, but at the cost of damaging plants. Ordinary dish soap, unlike specially-formulated insecticidal soap, strips the wax off plants, leading to scorching or death. Gillman suggests shelling out a few extra dollars for the commercial soaps.

Claim: Corn gluten meal can prevent weeds.

True. Although it tends to works differently around the country (due to climate and different weeds), applying corn gluten meal in an area over 2 to 3 years can prevent weeds and strengthen grass. If you don’t want to wait that long, mulch works much faster.

Claim: Weeds can be killed by an application of salt.

True, but the problem is that salt works by direct contact. Outer parts of the plant may be adversely affected, but the roots may not die. The main issue with using salt is that it is toxic to other (beneficial) plants and can take a long time to leach out of the soil. I wouldn’t use salt around any plants I really liked.

Whether you were tempted to use these particular claims or not, I hope that you research any remedies before trying them in your landscape. If you don’t mind losing a few plants, you can conduct your own experiments. One of the joys of gardening is that there’s always something new to try!