Some people don't consider Jerry Baker's tonics organic.
I use some of them. Book is for real, but for real gardeners. Some people don't follow exact recipes, apply some ingredients more than asked and get bad results. So, it depends.

Too Funny! Someone just posted over in the veg forum about getting an advert for a $32 book of 'garden secrets'...i asked if it was maybe Jerry's ghost...or maybe he is still alive??...i told her she should just haunt these forums, all the good spirits here give their advice for free ;~)

seriously...someone who would advise putting birth control pills on one's lawn??

Well, according to wikipedia, he's still with us, and only a year older than me...weird...but he's been claiming to be a master gardener forever, though the qualification process hasn't. I did mine in 1996, and it was only the second class offered here in N.IN, a place admittedly in its own time zone (at the time).

My MG status forbids using the title for monetary gain...

I've always thought that if someone used his wacky recipes, their gardens and lawn would smell like a successful frat party had been taken place. (Beer, soft drinks, urine, etc.)

The same brochure was sent to our home and we chuckled over some of the suggestions.

{{gwi:89236}}

I seriously thought he was dead...he's only a year older than ME...that would be 50...does this fitty-year-old guy look like he eats vegetables???

Well, i always use soft drinks, beer and some other after party leftover to water my lawn and it smells better than my neighbors lawn watered with some chemicals.
I don't see anything bad in his recipes. Maybe tobacco tea cannot be considered organic but the rest... Urine is accepted and suggested. Soft drinks just give sugar for soil life. Dishwasher soap (non-antibacterial) is not worse than soap that you can buy in nurseries.
Come on, people. I hope you are not saying that we should not use any kitchen scraps in compost. I like to use kitchen leftover in garden and my garden likes them. And i know plenty of people who are using Baker's tonics and like them.

By the way, he was born in 1931.

Nothing wrong with his recipes. His chemistry sounds kooky at first, then clever. I grew up in Detroit area listening to him and later in college chemistry I realized where some of his recipes came from. I don't understand why most of them wouldn't be 'organic'. Is it worth the money? That's up to the individual.

Dan

You know what sugar is good for? Killing bacteria. That's why it's a traditional ingredient in preserves and why honey is a good antibiotic for wounds. How this would benefit soil is beyond me.

And no, dishwashing soap is not the same or as good as insecticidal soap. The latter is actual soap, for one thing. Soap works by making things slippery. Dish soap is detergent. Detergent helps break up waxy materials. Waxy materials are what plants use to help protect themselves from insect predation. So what would you rather have on your plants? Something that helps encourage insect predation or something that doesn't?

Jerry Baker is full of penny wise and pound foolish "remedies." If you follow his directions, you will be putting something on your plants every two weeks. Talk about work.

I've used my own insecticidal soap for maybe 20 years. No phytotoxicity. How can this be, you ask? Because the soap is a low concentration. Same with sugar, which is not applied at full "strength", rather diluted in water.

Dan

The problem with Baker is his suggestion that you can use 1/2 the recommended amount of various pesticides, fungicides, herbicides by mixing them according to his recipe and that will allow the pests, fungi, and "weeds" to developp immunities to these products rendering them ineffecitve and then requiring the use of even more potent stuff. Since he has no problem using things such as Carbaryl and other synthetic products he is not and never has been an organic gaardener.

Well, I just wrote to Mr. Baker and asked him straight-out if he's an organic gardener or subscribles to organic principles. We'll see what his response is, (if he responds at all).

Greg
Nevada

Who said he was organic? It sure doesn't say that on the cover of his books or website
I haven't really found the need for all kinds of tonics and such and it is probly cheaper to buy something made for the job if needed

HA, HA, ROLLING OVER LAUGHING, HA, LOL, HA, HA, LOL,LOL,HEE, HEE,ROLLING OVER LAUGHING, HAA HAA!

You had nothing better to do than come to the organic forum to do a spin on an 80 year old man because he wrote a home remedy book of collected gardening recipes.

HA, LOL, HA,ROLLING OVER LAUGHING, HEE, HEE, LOL, ROLLING OVER LAUGHING, HA, HA, LOL, HEE, HEE, HA, HA!

Are you stalking his house too? Threatening his children? It gets sadder and sadder with some of you.

Their all asleep, you can't annoy them. Propaganda attempts to create followers to your ways are easier read than you think. Come with your own peanut gallery, gain popularity with followers, and you think you ended this mans career? Power of ignorance? I think he'll live and the book will sell.

Sand -
The book is a real book.

The advice, on the other hand, is pretty much worthless.

We got a copy of one of Jerry Baker's books many years ago and we used his tonics...guess what they work. We haven't used any chemicals for over 20 years. If you look at his recipes and use your head they make sense and they are much cheaper than buying plastic bottles of commercial poison.

Since some of his remedies use organohosphate insect poisons he is not, by any stretch of any organic gardeners imagination, an organic gardener. Scientists will not suggest using any of his concoctions in your garden for a variety of reasons, mostly because he suggests mixing things science would not.