An online friend, and one of my sources for inspiration for my business, Barbara Winter, has many favorite quotes to live by, but I especially like this one as it gets more and more applicable in todays online world where anyone can be an “expert.”

“Don’t take travel advice from someone who has never left home.”

I wish I heard that one years ago.

So, I’m on Twitter these days, and have been for several months now. I’m not sure if it is really helping my business, or it’s just a place for my random thoughts that pass through my head while working alone every day. Through this source, I’ve been exposed to many other garden-related people, and what they are Twittering about – perhaps that is the upside.

But, something is happening that is really starting to grind on me. It’s like reaching for a rose and getting poked by a thorn. We know the thorn is there, we just don’t what to think about it, so we don’t, and we get poked.

It was several weeks ago, when I read a Tweet about controlling slugs in the mid-eastern states – I can’t recall exactly where it was, but I didn’t realize they had slugs in colder climes so I followed the link. I was interested in finding out if they had any other insights into the same pest problem that we have here in Seattle.

Reading through this woman’s blog, she covered several ways to control them, the bait, the copper strip, and WD40.

Huh? What was that?

I read it again, and found that this was actually the end / chosen method to protect her annuals. She sprayed the bricks, and rocks, around this particular garden bed with WD40 and happily reported in the next day, that despite the smell of the WD40, she didn’t see any slugs so it must have worked.

Hmm. Weeee-doggies!!! What a miracle!

Uh, don’t try this at home. It’s smelly and harmful to the water table.

Another blogger-woman zeroed in on my miniature compost bin on Etsy.com. I add some miniature fimo fruit to each bin to boost the cute factor. In this particular picture that she found, it had a wee banana and an orange in it.

The blogger was obviously a miniaturist before she was a gardener as the copy underneath my picture had a clarification in brackets: “Though citrus isn’t a good thing for compost bins.”

Wow. Who knew?

All these years of putting everything organic into my compost bin, and now with the new compost rules, I’m putting meat and dairy in the bin, too. But, no oranges?

Uh, don’t try this at home either. Oranges are just fine in the compost bin. Think moderation if you are worm composting and if the peels take too long for you to decompose, cut them up into smaller pieces before putting them in the bin.

Ah, the beauty of computers where we’ve put the tools in the hands of the layperson.

Ah, the beauty of the Internet, where anyone can be an expert on anything.

Have we really evolved? Or have we just distracted ourselves by creating more – much more – noise to sift through?

Have a great Fourth of July and enjoy unplugging and taking in some different lights and noise for a change. Oh, and be careful who you take travel advice from, too.