Internet offers gardening delights without digging

I have been called many things in my life -but never a computer geek.
I have about as much talent with a mouse as I do with a scalpel. Still, once I find the "on" button I manage to coax wonders from the World Wide Web.
Among them is the Botany Photo of the Day. Originating from the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research, BPotD is a free service.
The photos arrive in your e-mail each day -and for a plant geek it's kind of like finding a chocolate under your pillow when you wake up every morning.
The photos are always interesting, sometimes whimsical and sometimes spectacular. Photos are drawn from the flora of the Earth: a delicate alpine harebell bespangled with dew jewels one day, a jagged sunset colored desert bromeliad relative the next.
Botany Photo of the Day makes you appreciate the diverse floral wonders of the world whether you have an interest in the botanical descriptions or not.
Make no mistake, the descriptions accompanying the photos are botanical descriptions, but there is so much more about the featured plants: science, medicine, history and culture.
Following the UBC description are comments from readers that range from "wow, that's amazing," to memories of finding the plant in its native habitat, to poetry, to occasional challenges to the botanical nomenclature.
Comments come from all over the world. It's as much fun to see the comments accompanying a photo of a plant that grows here as it is to see carnivorous plants from Borneo. It's a nice way to spend five minutes of your desk time. Subscribe at www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd.
Garden Rant (www.gardenrant.com/) is a blog by garden writers Susan Harris, Elizabeth Licata, Michele Owens and Amy Stewart.
Their subhead on their site is "uprooting the gardening world." Garden Rant is always fresh and pithy, full of no-nonsense information on current topics of note. They range from the mildly entertaining, such as a discussion of the prefabricated garden in the recent movie "It's Complicated," to the latest issues concerning pesticide regulation.
Once you get to Garden Rant you can go in several directions by choosing a side-bar heading. "Gardening on the Planet" covers environmental and sustainable issues as they relate to gardening, landscape design and planning.
"Bloom Day" speaks to plants and flowers. "Drink This" and "Eat This" are devoted -as you might have guessed -to garden-infused libations and vegetable wonders.
If you are anything like me, you are likely to find far more information than you will have time to explore. You will likely get lost along the way as you click through post after post submitted by the blog's founders and guests, such as Alan Armitage, the perennial expert from the University of Georgia. This blog is timely, friendly, funny and full of information -with a wary eye cast toward the mainstream garden media.
Kitchen Gardeners International is a wonderful site with an emphasis on growing and cooking your own food.
Roger Doiron was responsible for the "Eat the View" campaign to start a vegetable garden on the White House lawn.
Discussion forums on the Web site cover school gardens, urban and community gardens, tomato growing, gardening with children, and much more.
There are excellent videos on the site, too. Sam Kass, the White House chef, leads a tour of the South Lawn vegetable garden, and Doiron leads a brief instructional piece on composting with his typical twist of humor.
If you have a vegetable gardening question and want to put it before an audience of your peers, this may be a good path to follow.

If you have a gardening question or story idea, write to David Bare in care of Features, Winston-Salem Journal, P.O. Box 3159, Winston-Salem, NC 27101-3159, or send e-mail to his attention to gardening@wsjournal.com.