By A.R. Wolff You can do without the silver bells and the pretty maids all in a row, but if you re thinking about planting some tomaters or petunias in that patch of ground out back, you should to get on the Net. As with many applications, the Internet s main strength as a gardener s resource is in the way it delivers on the promise of a global village. Before the advent of the Net, those of us with green-thumbed neighbors had it easier than the unfortunate ones stuck poring over dusty books at the downtown library, or watching gardening shows on PBS, when it came to figuring out what, where and how to plant.
Human beings are better at giving advice and answering specific questions.
Now, thanks to Usenet news groups, Web-based bulletin boards, instant messaging and Internet chat, everybody s your neighbor. You can get advice from the gardening pro in Frisco, Philly or County Cork, regardless of where you call home. If someone has asked your question before, you can find the answer in seconds with a couple of well-chosen keywords. Again, most are indexed or formatted into databases, letting you find out exactly what you need by keyword. And of course, there s e-commerce.