Gardeners Can Find Help in Cyberspace

Date:  April 18, 1997
Editor: D'Lyn Ford  (505) 646-6528, dlford@nmsu.edu

LAS CRUCES -- Does your green thumb turn brown when it comes to forcing flower bulbs, composting yard wastes or growing specialty crops? Then take a break from your gardening chores and "surf the net" for help. A variety of gardening resources are available on New Mexico State University's College of Agriculture and Home Economics web site.

The site contains a database of publications written by Cooperative Extension Service specialists about disease control, insect management, harvest schedules, fruit and vegetable production, and fertilization and irrigation needs.

Curtis Smith, Extension horticulturist, hosts a forum on the web site for yard and garden questions. Gardeners can e-mail their questions directly to Smith who selects a few to answer on-line. An archive of previous yard and garden questions also is available.

Teachers who are interested in starting or expanding a horticulture program at their schools can get ideas from the Seeds of Change Garden project found off the college's web site. The Seeds of Change Garden is an educational project created by the Smithsonian Institute to teach children about the history of agriculture and cuisine throughout the world.

Educators can learn how to organize an educational garden to highlight different food origins and a sharing garden where students can plant seeds they bring from home.

Other craft and writing activities encourage children to create a class cookbook, a logo for the garden and a heritage banner depicting the birthplace of their family's favorite foods.

The college's web site has been on-line for more than a year and a half and has had more than 120,000 visitors in that time, said C.C. Chamberlin, college webmaster. The site's address is http://www.cahe.nmsu.edu/. Class descriptions, current news and a faculty directory also are available.

In the future, the college plans to put a master gardener page on the web site that will include information about common weeds and their control, local weather forecasts, and telephone listings for area master gardener programs sponsored by Extension.