Internet Gardening

Will the day soon come when a computer sits in the garden shed beside the spade, hoe, and tiller? If you have installed a computer in your garden shed, please send me a note and tell me how you are using your garden computer.

You might be interested in seeing how my aerobic garden is doing this year.

"The only thing that endures over time is the 'Law of the Farm.'
You must prepare the ground, plant the seed, cultivate, and water
if you expect to reap the harvest."
                                          --Stephen R. Covey

As a librarian and a gardener, I must be truly blessed, for according to Cicero:

If you have a garden and a library
you have everything you need.

But we knew from the beginning that gardening was a gift:

The LORD God took the man and 
put him in the Garden of Eden 
to work it and take care of it.
                  Ge 2:15 (NIV)

Comprehensive publications and services

Calendar of Garden Events: If you find yourself traveling more than you garden, try this useful guide to events in areas you might be visiting.
GardenGuides: You know that a gardening guide is comprehensive when it includes ample information on my favorite vegetables, including broccoli and brussels sprouts.
Human Issues in Horticulture: Virginia Tech's horticulture department provides guides to horticultural therapy, children's gardening, people-plant interactions, and community gardening.
The Garden Gate: For many years, Garden Gatekeepers have been providing this service, winning a Best of the Web designation in 2002 and 2004.
The Garden Web: The Garden Web provides access to many gardening related Internet services, including forums for the discussion of problems.

Gardeners on the Internet

Gardening is often a solitary pleasure, enhanced at times by back fence conversations with our neighbors. Some gardeners are using the Internet to extend their conversations and share their knowledge and their gardening pleasures. Some pages from individuals will be listed here from time to time.

From the Ground Up: Amy Stewart's essays on gardening might help pass a long winter when the garden is at rest.
Garden Helper: Bill Beaurain has a colorful and musical garden web headquartered in Washington state. Features of the site include a gardener's monthly project list, advice about a variety of gardening problems, excellent photographs of the mountains, and music to sooth your soul while you wait until gardening season starts in your area.
Kids Valley Garden: Showing a young child the wonders of vegetable gardening is the second greatest pleasure of my garden. The wonder in their eyes when they dig potatoes and see food popping out of the ground is a joy to behold. In the Kids Valley Garden, Louise Larabie shares her joy of gardening with a lot of kids in the short growing season of Ontario, Canada.
Lee's Brink of Knowledge: Leona Halley Henderson, who admits to being over 70, shares some of her favorite links that include many of interest to gardeners.
Moosey's Country Garden (Extraordinary): This web site was a gift to Moosey from her son Eggy on Mother's Day 2000. Moosey gardens on about three acres near Christchurch, New Zealand. The thousands of photos are superb. You can spend hours being inspired as you browse this rich environment.
Rochester Gardening: As I enjoy the long growing season in the mountains of southwest Virginia, I often wonder how folks are gardening in more extreme climates, like Rochester, NY. Here's a chance to find out, by browsing a simple site where "the only Java we know of is what we sip as we walk through our rose garden in the morning." For a more intensive gardening stroll, check out the three dozen pages of categorized gardening links. While some pages seem not to have been updated since 2002, others indicate they were updated in 2007.

Garden Magazines

I don't spend much time reading about gardening, probably because a casual approach to gardening is a restful contrast to the rigorous requirements of my professional life. Yet there have been publications that put my gardening life in perspective. Unfortunately, Traditional Gardening, which published an article that taught me to love the dandelions and other features of my lawn, is no longer available online. Perhaps I'll find another magazine to include here some day.

Reference Materials

Landscape Plants: Images, Identification, and Information: Oregon State University provides an encyclopedic list of landscaping plants illustrated with many photographs of growth habit, fruit, leaves, seasonal changes, and any other useful identifying characteristics.

Discussion groups

Vegetables: Internet news groups discuss both eating and cooking vegetables.
General gardening and flowers: There are internet news groups to discuss general gardening information, as well as orchids and roses.

Gardens to Visit

Hahn Horticulture Garden at Virginia Tech: The Hahn Horticulture Garden inspires many gardeners in Blacksburg, VA.
Longwood Gardens: Here are more than 1000 acres of gardens at the world's premier horticultural display garden. There are exquisite specimen trees throughout the grounds, and hundred-year-old bonsai and delicate flowers in the conservatory. On December 26, 1997, I saw the night time Christmas display in the falling snow, with lights strung in continuous streams to the very tips of the branches of huge trees.
Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew: The Web server of the RBC at Kew, Surrey, UK.

Virginia information

Virginia Cooperative Extension: Gardeners in every state should learn the benefits of consulting their local county extension agent for gardening information and problem resolution.

Shopping Guide

Ariens

My 5 horsepower Ariens tiller has been fighting my almost hopeless Appalachian clay and hardpan for 28 summers and is still going strong. Perhaps Ariens tillers were too durable and people who bought them never needed replacements. The Ariens web site no longer lists tillers as a product.

Burpee Seed Co.

Burpee wants you to order their free catalog. It has always been a useful reference from what is probably the best known seed company.

Gardener's Supply Company

I bought plant labels from this company, perhaps I'll buy more items as the service was good and they have a nice printed catalog.

Park Seed

Geo. W. Park Seed Co. also wants you to order their free catalog. When I planted my new asparagus bed in April 2002, I just found the asparagus on their web site and phoned in the order for the Jersey Giant variety. The roots arrived quickly. Despite the worst drought in years, my asparagus bed was well established by November. I enjoyed my first picking in spring 2003. In 2004 we had more asparagus than we could eat. By midsummer the ferns were seven feet tall. The plants only got better in 2005 and by 2006 they were fully mature and very productive. In April 2007, we were picking 1-1/2 to 2-1/2 pounds per day from just 20 roots.

Prairie Frontier

Wildflower and prairie grass seed is available from this company. Mostly I grow vegetables, but this site has some nice photos and other information about wildflowers that I can browse through on a cold winter's night.

Scotts

I bought my Scotts steel spreader more than 36 years ago in 1971 during the first summer in my new house in Morgantown, WV. It was a half price deal with the purchase of one bag of Scotts Turf Builder -- total cost for the spreader: $10. As you can see, the spreader has aged well. Here in 2004, under the spreading rhododendron, my late cat Blaktopp looked forward with enthusiasm to every gardening chore. I thought about the big guy while using the spreader in 2007.

We come from the earth, we return to the earth, and in between we garden.
--Author unknown

November 15, 2007
Harry_M_Kriz, [hmkriz@vt.edu]
University Libraries
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0434