Gardening meets the computer age

Spring officially begins March 20th. Now's the time to get started on your gardening. Do you have an abundance of seeds from your own garden? Consider trading them with an online friend to add some new varieties to your rows. Post what type of seeds you have and types you would like to find. It's a terrific way to get new varieties and share something from your garden with someone else.

One good site is blossomswap.com.. the entire site is dedicated to backyard gardeners who wish to trade seeds and secrets. Everything from trees, vines, vegetables, and flower seeds are up for trade.

Seedman.com has one of the biggest seed trading message boards around. They also offer for sale seeds from around the world including exotic varieties.

If you're looking for something out of the ordinary, try members2.boardhost.com/exoticplants. One user is offering to swap star fruit seeds on this board.

Gardening.com not only has a seed swap area, they also boast a plant encyclopedia, sections specialized for your region, zone charts, calculation tools, and so much more.

If you're in a hurry, you might try rebeccasgardenweb.com. In addition to the seed swap they have a live plant exchange. One neat feature is their templates for seed packets. You can make your own personalized envelopes for your seeds you trade or to mark your garden with. Want instructions on bonsai? They have it. You can upload images of your plants to share, and post non-commercial ads for your plants and seeds for sale. Even has packaging tips and guidelines for mailing your swaps.

Gardenweb.com refers to themselves as "the internet's garden community". A great site for planting information, they have a gardening calendar, seed and plant exchanges and message forums. My favorite part of their site is the mystery plant contest. Another hint is added each day until a winner identifies the plant.

Another huge gardening site is nationalgardening.com. They offer bi-weekly regional reports, how-to projects, online courses, kids gardening, seed swap, as well as a full line of gardening products, plants, and seeds.

Don't have anything to trade? How about some free seeds? New Jersey Championship Tomato Weigh-In is offering free seeds from their prize-winning tomatoes. Just send an SASE with $1 to cover shipping and mailer costs. Visit njtomato.com/seeds.html for more information.

Magicflower.com has unique flowers which open every evening in only a few seconds, right before your eyes! If you join their free newsletter, you may be one of the lucky recipients of seeds to grow them this fall.

Get 20 golden daisies, 20 bright orange daisies, and 10 sunflowers from jc boutique at

wworks.com/~jcshop/free1.html. Enclose $2 to cover shipping and handling.

If you prefer to browse and buy what you want, home.searchbeat.com/garden.htm has a list of seed companies that is mind boggling!

At johnnyseeds.com you can order online, phone, fax, email, and U.S. mail! They also offer gardening tools and accessories.

Order your free catalog from garden-seeds-online.com, or just place your order online. They have an interesting organic gardening forum.

Burpee seeds now owns garden.com. Go to garden school online, or just subscribe to their free newsletter. Famous recipes and help from the Garden Wizard makes this one informational site.

Many people browse online, write down names of plants they may be interested in growing, then go to your local store to purchase or order them. This is a great alternative since it would be impossible for any store to carry every type of plant in stock. Also your local store may offer support an online vendor can't provide.

Would you like some free gardening software? For landscape programs, flower and plant databases, garden design software and more, go to http://gardening.about.com/homegarden/gardening/msub18.htm. The main home page is at gardening.about.com/homegarden/gardening. Projects, gardening tips, how-to's, you'll be amazed at the links this woman has found.. Ponds and watergardens you prefer? Yes, that too.

If you'd like a look into the UK's gardening plans, drop by gardening365.co.uk. Learn about "knot gardens" and just how they do make those live mazes you see in all the mythical movies on tv.

No matter how you look at it, the Internet has a wealth of information about all topics, and gardening is no exception. So look up some of these sites, then take a break from that computer screen and plant a garden everyone can enjoy!