New Ways of Learning
Gardeners are always learning. They are always looking for new plants to try, for new answers to problems in the garden, new tools to make work easier, and new techniques for fertilizing or managing pests.
The time honored way of learning about new plants, tools and techniques is to get the information from a garden friend. It is this truth that makes garden clubs like the Greenfield Garden Club with its chatty meetings so valuable.
As a reader I am quick to turn to a book, and I have standard garden references like Rodale’s Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, Organic Plant Protection by Rodale Press, and Wyman’s Garden Encyclopedia. I am constantly looking things up and I get standard advice which takes one a long way.
However, we gardeners know that things vary so much from one garden to another, and it is not always easy to tell why a plant succeeds in one garden and fails miserably in another. Over the past decade a new resource has become available for the gardener. The Internet.
The problem with the Internet is that while you can ask any question of Google or your search engine of choice, you may very well come up with a dozen sites that offer differing information. How to judge the worth of the different sites is another question. I tend to pay attention to those sites that come from universities and Extension Services. There are also websites maintained by horticultural and plant societies that provide lots of good information.
Still those sites are still giving standard guidelines. If only we had a friend to talk to!
It is only in the past couple of months that I became aware of Dave’s Garden, a website that has over 300,000 registered users who not only come searching for information, but come to provide information. You may recall that a year or two ago one of the big books was The Wisdom of Crowds; Dave’s Garden puts that idea into practice.
If you logon to www.davesgarden.com you have access to information about 160,000 plants, and nearly 5,000 bugs including insects, spiders and butterflies. Lots and lots of photos. This information is all free to anyone who logs on and registers.
If you want a friend to talk to about your African violets, or daylilies, or potatoes, you can buy a year’s subscription for $19.95, just as you would a magazine subscription, but what you get is access to countless friends on specialized Forums where you can ask questions, and answer them from your own experience. You can even get a two month subscription for $5 to try it out and see how you like it.
The Forums weed out any questionable information pretty quick. With so many concerned eyes keeping an eye on the postings, errors are pointed out before you can say Trachelospermum jasminoides!
It is the search for knowledgeable friends and the desire of gardeners to share their experience and their passions that has led to a huge community of bloggers
A blog is an online diary or journal written by a passionate and opinionated gardener on a regular basis. Not only does the blogger have insights and opinions, so do those readers who Comment. A blog initiates a conversation.
As I have wandered through the garden blogosphere I have been so inspired by those thoughtful and passionate people that I have set up my own website www.commonweeder.com to hold some of the Between the Rows columns, and a blog www.commonweeder.blogspot.com where people can see what’s going on at the End of the Road and a new email address commonweeder@gmail.com so that people can more easily ask me questions.
There has been some discussion on the garden blogs about the demographics of bloggers and gardeners. Are there older and experienced gardeners who are comfortable with computers, ready to pass on their expertise via a blog? Are there younger people who routinely turn to the Internet to answer questions interested in gardening? We’ll find out.
For myself I am happy to say that my invitation to visit my blog has been accepted. I have been happy to get questions at commonweeder@gmail and have responded there. Yesterday a reader emailed me because she was worried about her pepper plant which was beginning to fail even though she had not changed anything about her care.
I once had a pepper plant or Christmas pepper (Capiscum annum) of my own. It was a hostess gift given to me at Thanksgiving and I loved the way the little red peppers stood up above the foliage. The plant, only about a foot tall, was so cheerful, and a perfect decoration for the holiday season.
I received this gift when I was a very new gardener and not familiar with houseplants. I think I understood that the little peppers would eventually fall off, because their purpose was to hold the seeds for reproduction. I did not understand that it needed to be treated like any annual. The seed germinates, grows, produces more fruit and seeds, and having done its job, the parent plant dies.
The plant is easy to grow, requiring bright light, comfortable room temperatures and plenty of water. Enjoy it. But the time will come when you just have to chuck it.
That’s the way I feel about poinsettias, too. The spring day comes when it is time to chuck it.
January 19, 2008