By Mark C. Carroll

While we are trained Master Gardeners, it is sometimes difficult to say aloud. The fact is, I consider myself a gardening student, one who, while studied, is constantly finding new questions to ask and wanting new information and experience. In fact, you could say that the point of education is to discover how little you actually know. When we know everything, we learn nothing. When we suggest or admit to ourselves that we know nothing, we are truly prepared for learning. Whenever I invest time, attention and sometimes money in my education and I think I know something, I realize there is so much more to learn.

So, why bring all that up? If you are reading this, I assume you are interested in gardening and probably many of the topics available at the Virginia Cooperative Extension Publications and Educational Resources website, https://www.pubs.ext.vt.edu/content/pubs_ext_vt_edu/en/index.html. I want to take this opportunity to share with you what information you will find at this site. Resources are organized as follows:

Enhanced Digital Publications — Generally these are eBooks in the EPUB format or HTML, which means they can be viewed in a browser on a computer, tablet or smartphone

E-books — These sometimes include the formats above, but many times have a pdf format available as well

Videos — Includes one-time postings like “How To Plant A Tree” and collections like the “Virtual Farm to Table: Series”

Publications for Sale — Don’t be tricked by this one — though it says “for sale,” most of the publications can be downloaded for free; however, I suppose getting a printed copy of the 2020 Pest Management Guide is going to cost something to print, whether done at home or professionally

Publications in Spanish — A collection of publications in Spanish for readers

You can also find information based on one of the following genres; each with multiple subgenres:

Agricultural Business, Finance, & Marketing

Agricultural Systems

Animal Agriculture

Commonly Used Forms

Community Development

Crops & Soils

Environment & Natural Resources

Foods, Nutrition & Health

Home, Family & Finance

Lawn & Garden

Nursery, Greenhouse & Turf

Specialty Agriculture

Youth Development

I wish I could teach everyone to be a Master Gardener, just by reading my articles, but that isn’t going to work. I hope to be providing actual classroom training sometime in the future, when the risk is lowered. In the meantime, I suggest pursuing mastery of information that interests you at the website above. The more you know, the more you will want to know. Remember, every journey starts with a single step or, in this case, a click.