D. Hopkinson, former owner/partner of the DanDe Greenhouse here in Clinton, Tennessee, offers a tip for new gardeners, “Do not overlook the valuable and plentiful free information that can be obtained by contacting or visiting your local Agricultural Extension Office. We have three booklets that we obtained copies of over 25 years ago that we still use every year when planting our garden: one was published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, another was published by the University of Tennessee, and the last by the Tennessee State University; the last two in conjunction with the Agricultural Extension Service. Each contains a wealth of information on a variety of garden types as well as vegetables and flowers. In addition, one ought not to overlook the information that is available free or relatively inexpensively at retail stores such as Lowes and Home Depot. One last source of free or relatively inexpensive information is the annual Yearbook of Agriculture published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture; these books written on a different topic each year have been published for well over fifty years. Of course, today’s gardeners have one resource readily available that has not been available to older gardeners, the internet. The wealth of information that is available in cyberspace on the information super-highway is mid boggling. One could begin researching garden information this Fall and still not exhaust what is available online by Spring. Last but certainly not least, don’t overlook the valuable information that local gardeners can provide you concerning their own planting practices and experiences, especially if you have recently moved to a new area of the country. A number of factors affecting gardening are different for various geographic locations as well as altitudes around the country, and what may have worked in a garden in South Jersey may not work quite as well or at all at higher elevations, or in a different climate such as the steppe and desert climates of the Southwest. Local gardeners can apprise you of such differences and save you a world of headaches!”
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