A garden tool growing more popular by the season doesn’t have a handle, won’t belch smoke, isn’t noisy and leaves no dirt on your hands. It’s a computer and it’s changing the way we do our planting and harvesting.
Farmers have been using computers for years for such things as measuring milk production from their cows, drawing up profit and loss statements, keeping track of livestock breeding cycles and maintaining inventories – often e-mailing feed and seed orders to their local co-op.
Now it’s the home gardener’s turn. Gardeners are using computers for everything from operating lawn-sized irrigation systems to determining how much insecticide should be dusted on tomato plants, from running digital weather stations to logging the return of the first migrating hummingbird.
Some people use their computers to track the average dates of killing frosts. Many others buy special software to help landscape their property, plot the shape of their vegetable plots and flowerbeds or suggest how to rotate their plants from year to year.
With camera-capable cell phones, wireless laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other Web browsers, the plant doctor is always in.
If you spot what appears to be a disease or insect problem while strolling through the garden or orchard, you can take a digital photograph, jot down some notes and then query one of many university extension service computer databases for identification, background and a suggested remedy.
“Technology is faster, better, cheaper,” said Bob Boufford, an e-learning specialist with the University of Alberta and author of “The Gardener’s Computer Companion.” “You can see a problem and solve it within minutes.”
| “The Gardener’s Computer Companion,” by Bob Boufford. No Starch Press. $39.95.
Ohio State University Web site: webgarden.osu.edu. Or see Kathy Purdy’s directory to determine if there are any garden blogs you would like to bookmark: www.coldclimategardening.com/garden-blog- directory. |
Computers aren’t yet capable of pulling weeds but like tough-love schoolmasters, they can keep an eye on all your growing things. “Some people post Webcam pictures on the Internet so they and others can watch what’s going on in the garden all the time,” Boufford said.
Probably the most valuable service computers provide, though, is swinging open the gate to a great storehouse of information.
Marion Owen, a gardener and garden writer from Kodiak, Alaska, gives an all-new meaning to over-the-fence chats with other growers.
“I compare notes about currants and runner beans with a friend in Scotland and I chat about potatoes with a gardener in Finland,” Owen said.
There are larger cyber-communities from which to gather information – online forums, for example, that also offer opportunities for socialization. And then there are garden blogs, personal Web logs that read like journals and generally deal with a single theme.
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