Well, there is no 100% right way... but, if you see something they are doing that looks like it's really not working, maybe ask something like "hey, what have you got going on here?" and see if that sparks a conversation, then maybe work in something like, "well, I do it this way and it seems to work really well for me..."

I guess try to remain open and ask questions rather than give directions to start the dialogue.

That sounds like a good idea. Thanks.

I come across that all the time. If a friend or neighbor seems proud of accomplishments so far, researching and doing it their way, i let it go. If seeming frustrated, never to try gardening again, i step in. Baby steps. I really don't want to offer so much that i'm asked to visit over and over when my own garden needs spring attention. (that has happened)

Usually it is a simple as, "where is your fan?. They seen to be laking some air circulation."
A simple fan solves many problems with seed starting.

You can always just offer. Something along the lines of "I love talking about gardening so if you have any questions or want to talk about anything, just let me know!"

After that, like you said, it's up to them if they want to take you up asking you things or sharing their stories with you.

I run into this with my mother-in-law a lot. She loves gardening but she doesn't do any research so she runs into problems but can't find the solution.

She recently told me she soaks all of her flowers with a sprinkler system daily rather than hand watering and her roses got black spot and she didn't know what it was from.

I said "You know what, I think I read something that said you are supposed to keep the leaves dry as much as possible or they'd get that. I wonder if that's it!" and she was really relieved to have a solution. I think someones approaching the situation as kind of a light bulb moment for you as well comes acrossed a little more friendly. :)

There's a fine line, especially with a few hardheaded folks, like me and my brother. We argue about every little thing, he thinks he knows better, I say my research shows otherwise. He does his way, I do mine. I told him that we'll see whose gardens look healthier. He thinks i'm nuts not tilling the soil, just filling raised beds with pure compost, I think he's nuts tilling the soil, buying all these expensive products. Since we been beckering for quite a while now, we alreasy know how it goes. Now we just give subtle criticism,because let's face it, i'm doing it my way, he's doing his. That is until he sees my gardens flourish, he wil transformed into a no-till, weed eating hippy, I think that's what they call me anyways. Lol, man this gave me a good laugh, because it's so real! People will always becker, there is always someone better than you. Everyone has some truth. Just keep adopting the positive practices, taking the truth from every person, no matter how many wrongs they have, still, take their truth and learn from it. It's when we, humans, get to egotistical and artogant and turn our head to the truth, just because we dont like some of the wrongs they say, they still have some truth. Everybody has some truth. Just kerp learning. It's when you are above the law, the teacher, that's when you get into trouble, that's when you stop learning.

A real simple way would be to offer them a leftover seedling that you grew. When he/she sees it(and compares to their own), they just may question you what YOUR practices are.

Kevin

Well there are many ways of doing things in gardening and your friend's 'wrong' may just be a different way from yours. The sprinkler versus hand watering argument is a perfect example. Does that make rain the 'wrong' way to water the garden? If you saw my seed sowing set up almost all of you would probably say it was 'wrong'. No lights, no fans, no heat pads. Same with the compost heap. No thermometers, no turning, no measuring of greens and browns. But it all works. Also there's a bit of a cultural disparity here, I think. I'd just mind my own business unless they asked for my opinion.

No, and I get that, I never have, and never will, be a "my way is the only way" type of person, but I can see from results that what they are doing is NOT working.

I am not a by the book, step by step grower, believe you me. I experiment and tinker and play and fail and sometimes succeed. I 100% realize what works for me may not work for someone else and vice versa.

In this case however, I notice the issues that a lot of growers experience or have experienced, myself included. Too little light, too much water, etc etc. As I said, I want them to be successful and have a good experience because I know how frustrating it can be having to learn everything on your own. But I also know what kind of stubborn, hard headed, and obtuse person I am and how I would react if someone came at me with unsolicited suggestions, even good ones that would make things that are not working, work.

It's easier to say "Wow I once made the same mistake you're making" than "you're doing it wrong."

Also nice to be proactive, as in showing up with needed equipment or supplies that the newbie doesn't know they need. When you can help someone be successful with their garden, kindness comes naturally.

This is my first year gardening, and thanks to you I have tomato plants grown from seeds (bought on the net in California) that are already bigger and better looking than everyone around.

Unfortunately most french people are arrogant, stubborn, and lesson givers.

Hence my neighbors are bitter when looking at my hippy garden covered with mulch and just keep throwing all their snails above my fence.

Even my dad is threatening me with all the plagues my organing veggies are going to get, and smiling his mean smile while enumerating the blights that are going to kill my squash, zucchinis, tomatoes, artichokes.

So I'll keep your advices for myself.

After all, if they want to learn something, they have access to the internet, even if the french forums are nothing as good or as friendly as this one.

"...throwing all their snails above my fence...."

Ha ha - Vaut pas la peine - ils rentreront chez eux - et vous gagnez
;-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Snails' homing instinct

I will be honest... I am sure my tomato transplants look awful.. I know that.. I know I need more grow lights... I know I need to keep a collection of larger pots to transplant up but my husband hates so many plants in the house ( I know... I know... he is getting better over time but I can't push him).

There are many reasons why someone may not be doing what they are supposed to... perhaps they are trying to see how many limits they can push.

I agree with Francoise that French people are somewhat prone to lesson-giving. I lived there for several years. One time, someone came over who obviously was not impressed with either my housekeeping or my indoor plants said to me, "would you like me to show you how to dust the leaves on those plants?"
I don't think there are many people who appreciate unsolicited advice.

Franchise and floral--- LOL!
And floral, it sounds like you and I compost and grow seedlings the same way :)

Zach--people are so different. I know folks who are happy for my advice, and then there are the people who only get annoyed so I learn to keep quiet and let them learn by trial and error. But agreed that your own success is sometimes the best teaching tool, and the best way to get someone to open to advice. Time for a seedling parade!

As Kevin said:

"A real simple way would be to offer them a leftover seedling that you grew. When he/she sees it(and compares to their own), they just may question you what YOUR practices are."

I have done this myself and it works, kinda. They will ask questions at least, even if they don't actually follow your advice.

I have became an "extension agent" of sorts at work. I'm asked for advice all of the time. If I don't know the answer off of the top of my head I will find the answer for them. Most of my researched answers come from GW!

Francoise, your comments made me laugh so hard. now I wish I could do a little animation of the annoyed neighbors sneaking up to their fences in the dark and tossing all their snails over the fence! I would title it "The Perils of Organic Gardening"!

I'd like to get some advice from folks here. I don't mean to hijack the thread but my question is in the same vein.

I'm a member of a community garden where there are no individual plots. Everything is shared and extra produce is donated to the food cupboard.

The owner of the garden has little to no experience with gardening, except for the 3 years that this garden has existed. For some reason, he favors planting transplants very, very close to one another. For example, in a 3.5'x13' raised bed he'll plant 36 tomatoes. His defense is that "this garden does well with close planting).

If this was his garden alone, I wouldn't care. However, I'm certain we're going to have disease issues and decreased yield if we use these spacing. How would you suggest a lower plant density would be more favorable?

Hopefully I have a little more tact then to go after someone with "wrong, wrong, all wrong" lol. My goal would be help, not to attack and criticize.

I do not believe that I have all the answers, but I do have a few and if the little bit I do know I can help someone out, I'd like to give it a shot.

LOTS OF IDEAS.

We, ourselves do often show off and start criticizing others. So that is one problem.
But according to the psychologist, you have to make a connection, first. Start with some praise. like " I like the way you ...", or " that is a good idea ..". Then you say what you want to say like: "I do it like this ..., I would do it this way"

Again, you have to know your audience.
IMO

Ferroplasm: You say the guy has little garden experience, but, "His defense is that "this garden does well with close planting)."

How would he know??

What I would do in this case is mention "that you made the same mistake before, but yields were way low and you had disease issues." Whether you did or not do this before, sometimes suggesting you "wearing the same shoes" in the past sometimes sparks action.

Or, since it's a community garden, perhaps show him what others are doing right in front of him. You might also want to show him the instructions on the label of a transplant and they just don't make up spacing guidelines.

I often wonder how many people some growers feed to require 36 frickin tomato plants! I usually have them coming out of my ears with FOUR. I can understand the ones that do it for revenue, but for the average family, I would think 10 max would have people inundated. I guess I have an advantage here in SoCal -- while I'm harvesting cool weather crops all through the winter, in cold climes, I guess people are having spaghetti every night from their garage full of canned tomatoes. lol.

Kevin

I don't have anything new to offer the OP about how to advice friends. I've probably used most of the suggestions here when trying to offer help. I think your choice of words is always important. Like not saying, 'you're doing it wrong'. And putting the focus on what your own experiences have been instead of what the person is doing wrong. Starting the conversation by finding something the person is doing well to compliment. I loved the idea of offering one of your own transplants so they will see what a well grown one looks like, should start someone asking 'how come?' Sharing some of the mistakes and stupid things you've done along the way, always puts someone at ease.

I had a good laugh over your post, Francoise. I can't imagine all that attitude from family and friends. You seem to take it well. I hope you have friends that are more supportive to help balance things out. :-)

Ferroplasm, Thirty Six tomatoes in that space?! I have a 4ft x 12ft bed and even if I put a tomato plant with it's own 2ft square space, that would be a maximum of 12 tomatoes I would add to that bed and I will actually give them more room than that. Even if they only had 1ft square space per plant, that would still only be 24 tomato plants. I would worry about a community garden that had to follow the advice of someone who would do that. I laughed out loud when I read that one.

This post was edited by prairiemoon2 on Thu, May 15, 14 at 15:44

I guess in reading this thread I just wonder why anything has to be said about people doing things wrong in the first place. Why not just give advice if it is asked for and let people be if they don't ask?

Besides, who is to say what is the right or the wrong approach to doing things? Gardening is one of those things where it seems like rules are meant to be broken.

I know a lot of what I suggest to people is contrary to the advice and practice of most people on GW. Does that make it "wrong?" I don't think so, but many might say it did. Now what if I told you that folks from the
University of Maryland Extension were so impressed by my garden knowledge that they tried to recruit me into their master gardener program? (I said "no" because I expect to leave the country around the end of this year). Does that make my methods right because some of the folks from the local extension were impressed by my expertise? I don't think so.

At most, I can say that my methods allow me to achieve my goals. When I first started, the goal was simple: grow some tomatoes. They weren't great, but I did get a few tomatoes. And I had achieved my goal. As time has gone on, I've added herbs and other plants, and even developed somewhat of a speciality in hot orange habaneros (and no, not all orange habs are hot--you can dilute the heat a lot by using too much water), and become more ambitious. This year my goal is to see how far down I can reduce my produce buying.

All my friends and (I think) everyone around me in my immediate neighborhood knows I grow edibles. If people ask me for advice, then I give them whatever suggestions I can. But if they ignore me, I don't care, and I probably won't even pay enough attention to them to notice. If people don't ask me for that advice, then I also don't care. I figure that half the fun of horticulture is the process of discovering these things for oneself. :) And I have enough of my own stuff going on. So live and let live works really well for me. :)

Angie (who is stuck inside this evening due to a heavy thunderstorm)

That's a hard one! I know more than most of my friends, and mostly because of what I learn HERE!
Usually, I just refer them to this website.
Most of my friends who garden aren't upset with constructive critisisem (sp) and neither am I!
I have a neighbor who is a director of a flower show, has minions to take care and build stuff for his fabulous garden, but steps into my vege/herb garden and says WOW! Nancy

Ferroplasm -- show your garden guy the picture under "my monster tomato plant" posted by Jennifer on this forum.

I give each of my tomato plants 3 square feet of space, and they become little jungles and 6 plants give me all I and my family (and neighbors) can eat, can, freeze, and give away. I thought 3 square feet was the recommended allowance -- maybe you can let him know? Or if he's too stubborn, you'll just have to wait and see what happens, and offer your advice if/when problems arise.

The ones who kill me are friends of mine who continually ask for advice. They want to know how I do everything, then they go home and do NONE of it. And as a result, they laugh off how horrible their garden turned out.

I can't figure that one out at all.

This thread is very funny ! Some of you really bother and think hard to offer ideas on how to help people who don't want to learn ! Why would you want to give water to a donkey who is not thirsty ? I guess that's why I'm always wonderfully surprised by the niceness of you guys when I come to the US !

For the life of me, I won't ever try to offer any advice to anyone who doesn't ask me any question considering the smirks that go with their mean "hi !" when they watch me and my dirty messy mulched garden !

While I was snails picking yesterday evening, a neighbor advised me to put sugar around my tomatoe plants, and to put a electric copper wire through them.

Such good ideas ! I answered. As the plants don't know how to process carbon thanks to the light, and as the hole with the copper wire wouldn't be an entry for every disease, I'm going to do that at once !

Obviously he didn't get the sarcasm because he was very glad to have taught me a good lesson and went away looking as proud and superior as only a french guy who knows all can be !

ill tell you one thing, if i see someone in the grocery store buying diet pop or some other carcinogen, i do not hesistate to tell them. This is beyond ego and etiquitte, it's about helping prevent people from drinking and eating poison! I know to some they are going to step back and say "oh wow, does he have nerves". I could care two hells about what i look/sound like, i trully sincerely want to help the people consuming this crap. I could just as easily go "well, she probably has access to the internet, she knows how harmful it is, let her drink it", but most people wouldnt consume it if they were aware of the carcinogens. Thats why the little advice or devil criticism(depending who you are) could actually really help people stop putting poisons in there body, this is just one case. Now if they think im nuts and continue putting it in their wagon, i wouldnt feel bad or embarrased at all, i feel i did the right thing. You just dont let people drink poison. Have a heart, let them know what they are drinking is not just a delicious flavored drink in a bottle, it is actually ery harmful for your body. In this case it's not right or wrong, or is it? It's just merely to consume carcinogens or not? That should be a no brainer right guys? Well you could be the brain in your local stores!

Don't give advice unless it is solicited. Period.

I think I might smack Natures_Nature if he/she decided to comment on the items in my shopping cart.

I find myself wondering what Natures_Nature has to say to smokers s/he encounters.

I agree with those who say to wait until garden advice is solicited, it will be both really heard and appreciated then.

I think it is disrespectful to personally confront people about their grocery choices, that is like telling them that they are children and cannot make their own decisions.
If one has strong feelings about nutrition, write articles, contribute posts here, etc.

Do not approach people in person in public about their grocery choices because they 'might not know'. For one thing, there are scientific disagreements and just because one reads a few articles, does not make one the purveyor of the absolute truth.