By Laura Stovel
For the Local Food Initiative
Have you ever wanted to share information about gardens or ask questions about gardening problems but didn’t know who to ask? The Local Food Initiative, with the North Columbia Environmental Society, has recently created the Gardenlist website – kind of a Stoke List for gardeners.
The new website, created by Tennille Barber, has a host of tools for gardeners and can be found at http://gardenlist.northcolumbia.org/. It features a tip of the week from a local expert gardener, a place where gardeners can ask each other questions or discuss challenges online, a place to advertise garden and local food-related events, and even a place to buy, sell, trade or give away garden items.
Perhaps you have a cherry tree that needs picking or a whole lot of zucchinis to give away. Perhaps you would like to sell an old wheelbarrow. This would be a good place to advertise.
If you are new to town or living in an apartment you might be interested in the garden sharing tab on the site. This is also a good place for those who have extra land or an old garden that they are not using.
One special feature of this website is the gardenlist calendar. This is where gardeners and preservers can enter information about the timing of their activities. For example, if Joe Smith is transplanting his raspberries on a particular day, he can enter that information on the calendar. That way, less experienced gardeners can learn from his activities.
To enter information in the calendar, users will need to register and sign in but after that the site is easy to navigate.