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.

Jerry Baker still lives. Funny isn't it? For a second Thursday, which is one of my 2 watering days by city rule, I sprayed my dry, thatchy 1,000sf front lawn with water, and a 50/50 mix of grape soda (grape soda is about the highest in sugar that you can get, and it's less than 70 cents for a 2-liter at "Wally World".), lemon ammonia, and a little Murphy's Oil Soap thrown in for softening and wetting. 2 weeks of that, and the grass is nicely green, NOT necessarily like a lush dark green swath of carpet, but not bad at all, considering-- also, most of the thatch is pretty much gone. I started playing with Jerry Baker's advice, formulas, and ideas about 5 years ago, snapping up every one of his books that I came across in area thrift stores. My front "lawn", in those days was, literally, a 1000sf Florida sandbox. It's come a long, LONG way since, thanks mostly to the late Mr. Baker, and it's been a heck of a lot of fun besides. A real kick for that little "mad chemist" wannabe in me. If you read Baker's stuff, you will find out that, in the early days, he was just about as big into "hard-core" chemical use as anybody. Gradually, his tone and his advice changed into a whole variety of the quirky formulas made from household items that are still going 'round and 'round, and are STILL bickered over regularly by both the chem-chumps and the organically-inclined. Baker didn't live to see much but the beginnings of our latest "green revolution". He probably would have welcomed it to an extent, but then again. . . Gradually, Baker dropped the worst and most expendable of the chemicals. I don't know specifically what it was that precipitated his personal revolution-- however, in the process, he obviously found himself a niche full of (maybe slightly nutty) do-it-yourselfers like himself, and gently guided, fed and nurtured a whole lot of folks with gardening insecurities-- like myself. Call it whooey. if you want. Baker himself certainly doesn't care at this point. Meanwhile, my own lawn is still far, FAR from perfect. Still, of those in my neighborhood, it isn't bad at all, hardly the worst to be seen. It mostly grows nicely, and a good bit of green, which may or may not be mostly bermuda grass, and nearly the entire 1000 sf is covered. Further, it holds up pretty well despite 2-3 years of drought lately. All this with little more that some as much peat as I could afford to thrown at it, a little sulphur for further pH lowering ( because it started at over a 7), some once/twice a year amendments (amounting to roughly a dozen bags TOTAL of peat, topsoil, and composted manure). I WAS putting on as much as 20# of seed a year --could have used less, and had a lot more of it germinate maybe, AFTER a couple ton of amendments were rototilled in from , but I couldn't afford that. Other than the above improvements, I used and still use some version of Jerry Baker's watering tonics for at least one of the 2 waterings a week that I am allowed. Last time I did any digging in my front lawn, I even found myself with a few genuine, live. wriggling EARTHWORMS trying to escape my excavation. Pretty cool, that, since the critters might as well have been a top endangered species when I first started working out there. The entire front yard was just that dead. COULD IT HAVE BEEN DONE much faster, much easier, and with a whole lot more money spent on it? Sure! Absofreakinlutely. I could have just thrown down a bunch of St. Aug sod, and replaced it every few years when the inch of soil it comes with croaked from exhaustion, but hey-- where's the fun in that??

I love Jerry Baker and all of his crazy tips and tonics! He gets that gardening is like life you have to try this and that and see what works best for you. If you need gardening and/or life to be an exact recipe for your happiness and success you need to go back to chemicals at the gardening store. In any event I'm looking to perk up my hibiscus out on the balcony. Does anyone have Jerry's recipe for houseplant tonic? Many thanks for sharing it if you do.

I have a different spin. He is a Quack for the most part. While most of his potions and tonics are harmless, they are also useless because they are diluted so heavily. He is also a known Fraud. He claims to be a Master Gardner which he is not. He has never attended an accredited Master Gardner program from any university or horticulture program. At the same time his bug killer recipe was deadly and extremely toxic making your own nicotine sulfate. If diluted as he recommended was OK, but keeping a quart bottle of Nicotine Sulfate around is very dangerous. It does not have to be ingested to be deadly as it is easily absorbed in the skin. You can buy books that have the same recipe to kill your lover applying it to clothes like underwear over a period of a week. He had one potion some found useful at times like a back yard Bar-B-Q of 1 tablespoon of Lemon Ammonia and 1 Tablespoon of dish soap to 1 gallon of water to spray down the area. It did make things smell nice and drove insects away for a day or so. But what he did not say is it can damage plants by washing off a protective wax called cuticle. Now if you like organics and quirky potions then the real Deal is my ole friend Paul James from Tulsa OK has a few books on the subject with a zany spin on life. To bad HGTV is no longer a source of Garden information. Just high end home construction. Paul was the best they had and the real deal Master Gardner.