   Worldwide Web Gardening - June 30, 1999 Jeff Schalau, County Director, Agent, Agriculture & Natural Resources Arizona Cooperative Extension, Yavapai County Finding good information about gardening in the arid southwest is challenging, but the number of books and magazines available on the topic is always increasing. Years ago, the only book we had was the Sunset Western Garden Book. Now there are many excellent books and magazines covering drought tolerant landscaping, vegetable gardening, native plants and wildlife, southwestern wildflowers, and a host of other topics. Nothing beats having your own personal copy of a book or magazine that addresses your specific gardening interests. As printed materials on southwest gardening increase, coming up with the funds to buy them can be an even bigger challenge. Public libraries are great resources and Yavapai County libraries try to keep current and have a great interlibrary loan program. Even so, this does not help us when we need immediate answers to our gardening questions. Today we have a new garden tool with can help us plan, protect, and problem solve: the Worldwide Web ("the Internet"). I know not everyone has a personal computer and many people are downright opposed to them. For those that have an interest in learning more, I would recommend a community college course or a visit to your local public library. Yavapai College has Internet short courses and even a new mobile lab that travels to rural communities. In addition, many public libraries have some computers that can be reserved for use. Finally, personal computers are getting faster and becoming more affordable all the time. It takes time to learn how to use the Internet, but it is not difficult. For the remainder of this column, I'll tell about a few of the Internet resources that have gardening related materials and where to find them. I will include the URL (uniform resource locator). This is just a fancy term for the location of the information or resource. The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension website has a horticulture section containing a range of gardening information at ag.arizona.edu/extension/. Probably the most useful site for the home gardener is The Arizona Master Gardener Manual at ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/. Another nice site is Maricopa County Home Horticulture at ag.arizona.edu/maricopa/garden/. It caters to the conditions found at lower elevations but can also be useful here in the Verde Valley. The Cooperative Extension websites from our neighboring southwest states also contain useful gardening information relevant to our conditions. To find a list of all Cooperative Extension websites in the nation, go to ceinfo.unh.edu/state_sites.html. From here, you can click the mouse on any of the entries and be taken to that state's website. For more specific information, check out Nevada at www.extension.unr.edu/MGnews/MGindex.html, Texas at aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/, and New Mexico at www.cahe.nmsu.edu/pubs/yard/. Your topics of interest can be found using search engines (Yahoo, Altavista, Infoseek, etc.). These are utilities that allow the user to type in keywords (such as "tomato insect damage"). Millions of sites are looked at and the locations of information are listed by name. This column is merely a starting place. It is an impossible task to present all the excellent materials available in electronic form in this short article. Besides that, the Internet is an ever changing landscape unto itself. Website addresses also change frequently. In closing, let me offer some words of caution to Internet neophytes: think about the credibility of the websites you use. Anyone can start a website and put almost anything they want to on it, whether backed by research or not. This is why I've listed information from universities. This is not to say that only universities have good information. Just try to understand the motives of the person or organization posting their information before you take it to the bank. The University of Arizona Cooperative Extension has publications and information on gardening and landscaping. If you have questions, call the Master Gardener line in the Cottonwood office at 646-9113 or E-mail us at mgardener@kachina.net and be sure to include your address and phone number. |