Resistance Gardening Tip: Curate Your Media
How to Find Good Gardening Information and Tips in an Attention Economy
This week's Resistance Tip is about finding responsible, reliable, and accurate gardening information on social media and beyond. And I'm putting on my former journalism teacher hat, so buckle up!
And a note: I am using a specific content creator here as an example. But I'm not linking to her account. I don't want her to get any more traffic as a result – nor do I want anyone to harass her in any way.
Last spring, I started to get rashes of bizarrely-mean comments on my Instagram account. These comments often accused me of being a “mean girl” and “gate keeping.” The language was often similar, they were on unrelated posts, and I had no idea what they were about.
Anyone who has been around for a while knows that my channels are devoted to gardening education with some DIY projects thrown in. My purpose here is to teach and to inspire. So these comments didn’t make any sense. I just deleted and blocked and moved on for several months.
That was until one commenter accused me of “try[ing] and take down JC” — we are going to use a psuedonym here. Since I had never even heard of JC before, that was definitely a stretch. So I headed over to her account and found a reel she made.
JC had seen my post on Threads in which I said:
“I just need to say this: the person who has been gardening for TWO YEARS has no business writing or selling gardening books or courses. Gardening is not something you learn in two years. Either these books or courses are full of material from other people or they are worthless. Quite possibly both.
Save your money.
Seriously.
Need good resources? Ask. I have a great list!”
In her video, she describes this as “elitist” and “gatekeeping.”
First of all, it takes a lot of gall to call someone else elitist when most of your content is you fannying about in front of your $8000 kitchen range.
But here's the thing: I stand by every single word I wrote.
Propaganda Techniques on Social Media? Yep.
As someone who has been growing plants for the better part of three decades — in five states and eight different climates — I can tell you that what I knew in my second year of gardening was not adequate to write a book on gardening or to advise anyone else.
JC uses a propaganda technique called “plain folks.” Fox News uses this propaganda technique all the time — extolling the virtues of the common man where the lowest possible bar becomes a compliment. She also twists my words, implying that I was talking about HER and her audience.
Is she writing a book on gardening? I have no idea. I just learned she existed.
But the plain folks approach in her reel goes further — to imply that there is an elitist bar being set, keeping the fictional person raising a tomato at their apartment out of the Gardening Club.
Nope. That’s not at all what is happening here. This is simply propaganda and ego-stroking.
For JC, the payoff is clicks and comments. She gets hundreds of supportive comments like this one: “Some people are just angry and mean. You’re a creative person bringing people joy by sharing your knowledge and creating content.” Ego boost for her. Lots of defensive comments from people who adore her. Her content gets boosted by the algorithm.
But most of them missed what I actually wrote, after all the text is too small for them to REALLY read it, and she has misrepresented it as an attack on gardeners and gatekeeping in the gardening community — a community which is open, embracing, and genuinely invested in other people’s successes.
Her experience with “elitism” probably comes in her own comments section where every time she posts a gardening project, knowledgeable gardeners chime in with kind suggestions about how to better garden.
Because here’s the thing: this creator makes it clear that she does not know much about gardening at all in the content she creates.
And gardening, like most things in life, requires both experience and expertise. There is no such thing as a green thumb – there is only knowledge and experience and lack thereof. There are right and wrong ways to do something, and the results are measured in the health or death of a plant, the vibrancy of an ecosystem, the beauty of a place.
Being careless and posting bad advice costs those who follow you time and money.
Understandably, beginner gardeners have trouble discerning good gardening advice from bad. And the proliferation of books and courses presented by people who are good at taking pretty photos and presenting clever content but who lack even basic horticultural knowledge makes it even more difficult for beginners to know who to trust and where to start.
As a Master Gardener — and yes, JC, I am one — and on my own personal accounts across platforms, I answer hundreds or even thousands of gardening questions each year. Many of them can be summarized as “I saw this thing on the internet, and I followed their instructions, but everything died. What did I do wrong?” And usually the answer is: "You didn’t do anything wrong. You received bad advice" — followed by a science-based explanation of why that advice to put stones in the bottom of a raised bed or to mix old potting mix with garden soil or to plant English Ivy was a terrible idea.
Dubious Tips & Hacks
In the last few years, influencers and content creators have started sharing gardening tips and “hacks” and are now marketing their courses and ebooks widely. But as a beginner gardener, how do you know who to trust? Who actually knows what they are doing?
This is the difference between experience and expertise. Two years of gardening certainly gives you experience, and I agree with JC on one thing: if you are growing plants, you are gardening. Wear that badge proudly!
However, and this is not confined to the gardening world at all, the algorithm does not promote expertise, so the gardening content you are more likely to encounter is that which is controversial, clever, or entertaining — not that which is ACCURATE. So the number of followers, likes, shares, and clicks does not equate to competency or accuracy. And it certainly doesn’t equate to expertise.
Let’s go back to JC’s original reel. She saves mention of the actual premise of the post for the caption where she writes: “If you’ve been gardening for two years and decide that you would like to pass on the lessons you have learned through a course or an ebook, go for it.”
Here’s the thing: as one of the comments on my original Thread puts forth, “Two years isn’t even long enough to see how a transplant truly worked out.” And that is the experience/expertise line — gardening is a slow game. It requires patience, prudence, and care. And frankly, carelessness in gardening is both expensive and leads to more frustration than success.
AI and Gardening Content
Sadly, with the entrance of AI, those courses and ebooks are less and less likely to be original work or to be reliable. Go in and ask AI some basic gardening questions – the answers are often hilariously wrong. And here's why: AI is trained on what's on the internet. But the internet does not have an editor who is looking at accuracy or validity. It is looking at popularity. And AI assumes popularity equates to validity, but as it was in high school, so it is also true on the internet: popular does not necessarily mean smart or right.
For example, when that rash of electroculture content took off two summers ago – you know, putting copper wire in your garden to perform miracles – blog posts from disreputable sources looking to cash in on clicks popped up all over. This makes the Google machine serve up their posts more and more frequently and suddenly AI thinks that electroculture is:
"Electroculture
Wrap copper wire around plant stems or branches
Incorporate copper coils into the soil
Create a low-voltage electrical circuit that interacts with the plant's natural electrical signals
Promote growth and vitality
Increase yields by 100%–300%
Eliminate the need for fertilizer and pesticides"
This is scientifically-verifiable bullshit! Seriously, electroculture is nothing but a scam that has been around since the late 19th century, and yet AI will tell you that it "increase(s) yields by 100%-300%."
So if you are teaching gardening and creating gardening content, you must be absolutely sure that the advice you are giving is correct and accurate — and if you don’t know something, you are going to reliable resources to get good information. Really big gardening accounts — like Epic Gardening (for whom I have done work) — have teams of horticulturalists and researchers on staff to make sure that the advice they give and what they teach is accurate. But that is rare.
And JC isn’t actually interested in teaching gardening. She gives the game away when she writes: “I’m exhausted from the gatekeeping and elitist attitude in the gardening community. Sound dramatic? Check out my recent reel on container gardens. It’s gaining traction, and naturally everyone believes their method is superior.”
Well, JC, let’s look at that post. This is an example of the kind of bad gardening advice that proliferates across Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. And scores of readers point that out in the comments — comments which she paints as "gatekeeping." She takes a beautiful raised bed, dumps about $40 of white stones in the bottom, and then covers it with a few inches of soil.
This is Daisy Buchanan gardening. It’s all done for pretty video. That stone does NOTHING but make that raised bed heavier and create a problematic water table in the bottom. You might as well just line the bed with dollar bills. And she filled the container with potting mix which is a bad choice for raised garden beds — especially if you are growing vegetables. The soil isn’t deep enough for plants to actually grow in, either. But one of her commenters said it best: “clearly never gardened a day in their life.”
That’s the point for JC: her carelessness, tossing cake boxes over her shoulder in her kitchen, fannying about in front of her $8000 range, throwing plants about. She is making entertainment content — pretty and vapid with quick cuts and cute aprons.
But when entertainment masquerades as education, you have to be better than careless. You have a responsibility to your audience to be accurate. To know what you are doing. To do better than just courting comments and controversy for more plays, more clicks, more likes, more follows.
And this is the problem with algorithms. They are built on the idea that popularity rules. So entertaining content beats authoritative content every time. The person with expertise and accurate content isn’t going to get as many comments — because there isn’t something to correct, to gasp about, to comment on. And if you aren’t using manipulative propaganda techniques — appealing to plain folks to incite outrage, for example — your content isn’t clickbait.
So on social media, the cream that rises to the top is often rancid, curdled, spoiled.
Most of us can’t afford to be careless, and gardening can be expensive. A failed gardening project is wasted money. Spending your hard-earned money on a gardening book or course written by someone with a little experience but not much expertise is an expensive gamble. Not only are you spending money on the product itself, but if you are given bad advice and inaccurate information which you then put into practice — and then your plants don’t thrive — you have thrown away even more money.
So, how do you sort out the good gardening content from the bad?
There are a few red flags to look for:
1. Recycling Content.
We all reuse some footage, don’t get me wrong. But do their videos show growth and change over time?
Scroll through their videos. Are they showing you the changes of seasons? Do you see the project as it grows and evolves? Or are they just recycling the same 90 seconds of pretty footage over and over again? THAT is a red flag. When an account uses and reuses the same footage, and doesn’t show you the reality of how that raised bed or vegetable garden or potting project evolved over time, that isn’t necessarily gardening content you can trust.
And you really have to scroll through their videos one after another to see that happening.
Unfortunately, the algorithm incentivizes recycling bad content if it is controversial. JC, like so many other content creators, has just a handful of gardening reels which she recycles and reposts over and over again always with the same effect: comments about how bad her advice is which stirs up controversy which boosts the views of her reels which spreads more and more disinformation every time she posts them.
2. Ignoring Criticism.
Read the comments on how-to posts. Are there lots of comments critiquing how a project is done? Are there other gardeners offering advice? The gardening community is a generous one, and people are always willing to help and teach. Is the creator responding to those critiques?
If the person posting seems to be reveling in the controversy, like JC, that is a red flag. If there are lots of gardeners who are critiquing the methods or what is said: also a red flag. If they aren’t responding to comments at all and just let them hang, that’s also a red flag.
Answers to comments and questions often reveal more than any post, frankly. When JC responded to a question writing, “I come back in the spring and add a couple layers of organic fertilizer,” for example, that reveals a level of ignorance which can’t be ignored no matter how spicy the content is. Advice on applying fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides should be handled carefully and only by people with expertise.
3. Not Acknowledging Inexperience.
Does the person ever say, “I’ve never done this before” or are they always the authority? Do they admit when they don’t know something? This is more subtle and may require months of regular viewing, but if someone asks a question, is the person willing to say, “I don’t know, but I’ll help you find that answer.” That is the sign of a reliable gardener — particularly if they have the skills to know that a simple site:edu search yields the best search results. Because here's the thing: no gardener has done it all. So much knowledge is location-specific. A good gardener acknowledges this and relies on the expertise of others.
Where do you get good answers?
Books
Here's the thing about the publishing world – there are still fact-checkers and editors who shepherd books through the big publishing houses. This means that publishing house books are vetted unlike self-published pieces or online downloads and content. And there is A LOT to be said for this kind of "gatekeeping." It means that what is published is presumed to be factual and accurate. And responsible publishers pull books if they aren't.
Are there exceptions? Of course, but as someone who has been through that rigorous process, I know that there is ONE word in my entire biography of Michelangelo which is inaccurate (and I hate that it is there). My book was edited, peer-reviewed by the expert in the field, and scrutinized (and I don't know how that mistake slipped through).
This list includes my favorite gardening books on a range of topics.
County/State Extension Offices
Did you know that we have many land-grant universities in this country where thousands of scientists devote their research to helping farmers and gardeners grow plants? They conduct studies on seed starting methods, growing methods, plants that thrive in various climates and zones. They conduct trials and publish their results so that the public has access to accurate information as quickly as possible — for free. This is an enormous resource — and it is the resource on which Master Gardeners draw when we answer questions and teach gardening in each state across the country (and parts of Canada, too).
Master Gardeners
Looking for your local Master Gardeners is another good start! And many Master Gardener programs also have a social media presence. Find your state or county offices. Look at your local Extension programs at your state universities.
Site:Edu Searches
When you search for the answer to a question, try adding "site:edu" at the end of your search. This will return results from educational institutions and government resources – those scientists and land grant universities that are invested in making sure you have access to reliable gardening information for free.
Want to try it so you see what a difference it makes?
Type in: "putting copper wire in your garden" then type in "putting copper wire in your garden site:edu" – the difference in search results is VAST, and you can see the effect of popularity vs. authority.
Social Media
Social media is an easy place to find gardening information. It's beautiful, inspiring, and often fun. If you are still on those platforms, and lots of you are leaving for good reasons, here are some accounts which I find to be both knowledgeable and experienced. Many of these gardeners are also Master Gardeners, too.
And it is FINE to follow people who just post pretty pictures and their own beautiful gardens. Not everyone is a teacher!
So here are some of the gardeners I follow on Instagram and TikTok who give good, reliable, science-backed advice:
ColoradoMasterGardeners – find the Master Gardeners for your county or state!
Substack:
Additionally, Julie Whitmer Gardens has a Substack Directory of garden writers. She hasn't vetted them, however, beyond that they are active gardening writers.
YouTube:
Streaming:
Ultimately, we know that the consumer — you — takes responsibility for what content you choose to consume. And there is nothing wrong with turning to social media for entertainment. We all do! But we must also be aware of the manipulations of algorithms — both by content creators longing to be heard and by the social media companies themselves who have abdicated all responsibility for curating content to the roar of the crowd. Bread and circuses.
This is an act of resistance: carefully curating the information you consume.
So I stand by my statement: no one with two years of gardening experience has any business writing a book. Yes, this is gatekeeping. Absolutely. For good reason. Beginning gardeners deserve more. They deserve science-backed gardening advice from people with both experience and expertise who can guide them to the best practices as we know them right now and who can help them find a love and a passion for gardening with less heartache and frustration and waste.
That's my goal here, on my website, and on social media. I hope to continue to earn your trust and faith for years to come. If you have questions or comments, drop them below! I am always happy to hear from you!
Happy gardening!
Angela
If you missed anything this week, here’s the weekly roundup:
Awesome post. I just wrote a note about "content creators" vs garden writers. All the fake, incorrect or incomplete "info" out there is so disheartening. I'm so glad I have no idea who JC is!
I love this post, it shows how important media literacy and critical thinking skills are needed when consuming ALL types of content, and how pervasive and cunning right wing propaganda currently is.
Furthermore the thing I have always loved about garden is HOW accessible it is - knowledge is shared and passed generously between neighbours, community members, other fellow gardeners - just like they do with a bountiful yield. Only sharing that info through content that is monetized is true gatekeeping and always gives me a big red flag. I grow food and flowers as an act of resistance and a way to fight against capitalism.