GardenABCs is a forum for parents, educators and community members seeking guidance, resources, fundraising, networking and teaching support to start and maintain learning gardens.

Whether they're school- or community-based, urban farms or native land restoration projects, gardens are valuable teaching tools.

The goal of this share-site is to bring people together to promote the environment, healthy eating, exercise, sustainability, self-reliance, core values, academics, and charitable giving through garden initiatives.

GardenABCs

Are rabbits devouring your veggies? Are deer making a dinner of your shrubs?

Well, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) and University of Illinois Extension have developed a new website -- Living with Wildlife in Illinois -- to help Illinois residents coexist with wildlife, especially in urban areas.

This excellent site helps people identify animals, suggests ways to prevent problems, provides a wildlife directory and answers many public health and safety questions.

In addition, it guides users on determining whether or not they need an animal control permit as well as what to do with sick, injured or orphaned wildlife.

Living with Wildlife in Illinois

The Garden Web provides a wealth of information for gardeners. My favorite section is Garden Voices where highlights of gardening blogs from around the world are posted. The Web site also features garden forums, a directory of gardening organizations and botanical gardens, a database of plant information and a garden exchange.

Garden Web

The Chicago Botanic Garden's Illinois Best Plants Web site allows you find plants to fit into your landscape plan. You can search for plants based on sun, size of plant, flower color and plant type. Information is also provided on plant care and recommended cultivars with photographs.

Illinois Best Plants

Cyndi's Catalog of Garden Catalogs

Cyndi Johnson gardens in California and has developed an online resource for home gardeners, Cyndi's Catalog of Garden Catalogs. She has a listing of more than 2000 mail-order gardening catalogs in the United States and Canada. The companies are rated for quality, service and price.

Food Safety Music Videos

Nancy Kreith, University of Illinois Extension Horticulture Coordinator emailed me this web site a couple of weeks ago. The focus of the site is to promote food safety. The site uses musical animations to get their message across to the viewer. The animations were produced at New Mexico State University as part of USDA CSREES National Integrated Food Safety Initiative Project Number CD-D-FST-7057-CG.

The project title is "Improving Food Safety Education Through Use of Music-Based Curricula" and the Project Director is Carl Winter at the University of California, Davis. Other cooperating educational institutions on the project are the University of Idaho, Clemson University, the University of Delaware, and North Carolina State University.

My favorite video is "Don't be a Gambler" which shows you how to properly prepare burgers. Another great video especially for kids is "You Better Wash Your Hands" sung to the Beatles song, "I Want Hold Your Hand". Other videos include "We Are the Microbes", "Don't Get Sticky Wit It", "Stomachache Tonight" and "Veggie Believer". Audio versions are also available on the Web site.

Christmas Trees and More

Years ago before the internet was around we would put together a brochure of local Chicagoland Christmas tree farms and run it off on a mimeograph machine. For you youngsters, a mimeograph machine was used to make multiple copies of brochures, articles etc.

When the World Wide Web came on the scene we decided to put the Christmas tree farms listing online, plus other Christmas tree related information. As a result the web site Christmas Trees and More was born.

The main feature of the web site is a listing of Christmas tree farms in Northeast Illinois and the rest of the state, plus the adjacent states of Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin. Farms can be sorted by city and county. The Christmas tree types section provides information on needle retention and aroma with pictures of the trees. There are also sections on Christmas tree facts, tree fun and tree education.

Great Plant Escape

The Great Plant Escape was the first site developed by the our University of Illinois Extension Regional Web Development team and to this day is probably the most successful web site we have developed. The Great Plant Escape invites you to join Bud and Sprout on their journey into the world of plants to solve six plant mysteries. Students will learn about soils, composting, germination, seeds, plant parts, plant propagation and bulbs. Get the plant facts for each case and do a fun activity after you solve the mystery. A teacher's guide integrates the lessons and online quizzes with other classroom ideas. Good for elementary and middle-level science classes.

Missouri Botanic Gardens

This website is packed with great plant information. There is a FAQ section has a searchable database of 1,700 gardening questions answered. The Plant Finder service contains information in a searchable database of over 4,000 herbaceous perennials, shrubs, vines and trees which are currently growing or have been grown at the Missouri Botanical Garden's Kemper Center for Home Gardening. The 300 HortLine fact sheets were written by Garden staff to reflect growing conditions in the lower Midwest. The site also has diagnostic and control measures for 170 of the most common insect, disease and environmental problems including animal pests.

Another added bonus is that you can use ten (10) low resolution images in any single work from the MBG PlantFinder royalty-free provided:

• In printed works, the credit "Courtesy Missouri Botanical PlantFinder" appears with each image (preferred) or in a prominently displayed credits section.
• In online or electronic works, credit appears with the image (preferred) or in a prominently displayed and easily reached credit page.
• You email Glenn Kopp at: glenn.kopp@mobot.org with a list of what images you are using and where they currently appear or will appear (for documentation and usage assessment purposes.)

Note: You can save these low resolution images directly off the Internet

California School Garden Network

I wish every state would make a $15,000,000 commitment to school gardening like California. The California School Garden Network was started to encourage and support a garden in every school, thereby creating opportunities for children to discover fresh food, make healthier food choices, and become better nourished. The website has a free download of the CSGN's new guidebook: Gardens for Learning: Creating and Sustaining Your School Garden, an online newsletter with nutrition information, lesson plans, recipes and garden activities and a web-based guide, Plant a Seed, Watch it Grow which is another guidebook on how to start and maintain a school garden, plus tips and suggestions on how to integrate the garden into the curriculum. There is a curriculum section with over one hundred garden-based lessons and a download section with an excellent PowerPoint presentation called the Power of School Gardens.