Rewriting Gardening Booklet - suggestions please.

[Wolf mom]

I've volunteered to update a 1980's (yup, nothing since then) Gardening booklet put out by our Co-operative Extention Service specific for my county. Although this wil be specific for my county, there are a lot of general type questions/thoughts that would be appreciated to give me directions to go in and address in this booklet.

My questions to you are:

[I]If you were new to an area and wanted to start gardening, what kind of information would you seek?

After beginning gardening, what information did you find that was not addressed sufficiently for you, that you wished you had had before beginning gardening.

Any thoughts, comments and stories would be greatly appreciated.

(I an going to cross post this in the gardening forum)

[knight88]

Wolfie, there is a book believe it is called western gardening. That book has been updated many times. It has tremendous info for AZ and the high desert areas. The best copy I had found was published about 1990. Look on www.alibris and I bet you can find it. BTW that is a great site for books. Good luck...

[cc-rider]

I'd like to know what crops could be successfully grown in that region. For instance, living in Ohio all my life, I was surprised that my southern Fl relatives didn't have cherries. Never would have thought that they couldn't grow them. Ditto trying to grow pecans up here.

Local favorite varieties, maybe?
Frost free dates?
Local resources for plants, seeds, mulch?
Local resources for classes? Master gardener sessions?