Monday, July 03, 2017

Find a Listserv of Local People for Gardening Advice and Community



Who do you turn to online when you have a garden problem or question? There are so many resources out there, but how do you know how knowledgeable the site is?

Find a Local Listserv
I like listservs because there are a lot of voices to offer advice.

I had a question this past week about my tomato plants that seem to be growing really slowly this year. This has never happened to me before! The plants look healthy and they have started flowering but they seem to be only about 1/3 the size they should be for late June/early July.

Left Brandywine heirloom, right Jet Set.

My trusty resource is a Yahoo group I belong to, the Washington Gardner. It is described as a “Free, open discussion list for Washington DC area gardeners -- DC, MD, VA, WV, PA, and DE -- to share gardening information specific to our region. Hosted by Washington Gardener magazine. www.WashingtonGardener.com” The group is so helpful and knowledgeable. Even when I don’t have a specific question, I learn so much from reading the posts.

Here’s my question (cumberland68 is me) – and you are never alone when you are having a gardening problem!


Every day Kathy Jentz, the group manager and edit of Washington Gardener magazine posts here “Gardening Tip of the Day.” So she answered my question with her tip yesterday.

 

This is trusted advice, off to Home Depot I go today. I will report back on how the fish fertilizer did.

I also am a member of the SilverSpringGardenClub and takomahort listservs that serve the Mid-Atlantic. Take a look at Yahoo Groups, there is probably a gardening listserv in your area.

Social Media
I really enjoy looking at pictures of gardens from around the world. Social media makes it so easy to share your garden pics right from your smartphone or tablet. Download the app from your app store to your phone, create your account and you are ready to go. I really like using the Hootsuite app to follow Twitter (@advncingtheplot) and I just started posting to Instagram (advncingtheplot). For ideas and inspiration I use Pinterest. It is a good medium for flipping through photos and archiving my garden’s progress.  

Hashtags make finding certain types of posts easy. I like to follow #gardendc, #gardenchat and #growyourown. Make sure you add hashtags to your posts, too.

What are your go-to social media resources for garden advice and inspiration?

1 comment:

Susan Harris said...

http://dcgardens.com/gardening-email-groups/
Here's more. (Kathy J suggested I comment.)