A few days ago I was on Threads and I saw a post about garden gatekeeping. That's when you withhold information. Another post I saw was someone screaming that no one should be gardening unless they have acreage.
Everyone has different garden goals. Everyone has a different socioeconomic status. Not everyone wants to grow vegetables. Not everyone has a yard. Not everyone has full sun to grow certain plants. Everyone has different access to water. And maybe people only have one good window with a 4 inch shelf on it and they only want to grow a cactus. You can't control everyone's garden goals and you can't make someone else have your same garden goal.
You can't gatekeep garden knowledge because someone doesn't have the same garden goal as yours. Well, actually you can but then how does that help? Knowledge is power and shared knowledge will help your tomatoes be more resilient to the weather and diseases.
As a Master Gardener I get questions about what chemicals to use in gardens because people don't want bugs and insects. Or what chemical to use to blanket cover a whole yard because of clover or creeping charlie or crabgrass. And here's my response - what's your gardening goal? what are you trying to achieve with your garden? what have you done so far? can we talk about integrated pest management? can I offer some suggestions that maybe you haven't tried yet? I also get questions about growing vegetable gardens in full shade, trying to grow full shade plants in full sun and vice versa.
I love sharing knowledge because I want others to succeed in their garden goals. I want to show my experiments, my failures, etc... because it's important to me to share what doesn't work in my yard and in my small urban garden - I want to know if anyone else has made the same mistakes and maybe even get more information about how to change up what I'm doing. I also want to share what works in my garden so that others can try the same thing in theirs to successfully achieve their goals too.
It's also important to share information so that we can teach each other from our mistakes. Like accidentally planting mint in the ground or realizing that sage can overtake a whole garden bed or that some herbs that are supposed to be annuals keep coming back or the bounty of volunteer tomatoes. And anything that works to keep out squash bugs. The more you know - the better your garden will be!
