"Plant your seeds in a row, one for the pheasant, one for the crow, one to rot and one to grow",
which just meant, plant more seeds than you'll need because not all seeds will take. Some new seedlings will die, and some may be taken out by pests in the garden and you do have to thin out the weaker ones to make room for healthy seedlings.
Another favorite - beer makes good slug bait. And it actually does! However it seems after some studies were made (one study in particular by the Colorado State University) suggests that the beer be fresh (fewer were caught when the beer was flat), that slugs prefer a lager over ales, and they also found, believe it or not, that slugs preferred Bud Light.
Some old ways of doing things were simply wrong. I was always told to put some stones in the bottom of a clay pot to cover the holes before I put my plant in. Not a good move. Since water moves through stones very slowly, the soil at the top of the stones stays wetter causing the roots to rot. You're much better off putting a coffee filter over the hole to prevent the soil from washing out.
