GardenDesk

Getting back on track with Garden Desk

I have been gardening for over 20 years now and writing about it ever since. In the early years, I logged my progress and observances on paper while sitting at an old desk that I placed in the garden. I always enjoyed sitting at that old Garden Desk after a hard days work of planting, weeding or harvesting.

When I got my first computer in 1995, I started transferring some of my information to word documents. Then when I learned about blogging in the Spring of 2006 I started a blog at Homestead Blogger called "Out in the Garden". I no longer visited my Garden Desk and wrote inside after gardening instead.

By June of that year, I missed my Garden Desk so I started a new blog with Blogger appropriately called "GardenDesk". A year later I moved it to Typepad and all was well.

Last year, I wanted it to become a website so I moved back to blogger and made the typepad portion into "pages", information about garden topics. The idea was to keep "blogging" about my garden with blogger, and create page material on Typepad. Eventually I wanted to learn how to turn the Typepad portion into a real hosted website, apart from a blogging platform.

That was a big mistake because I spent so much time trying to figure out how to make a website that I forgot to blog. I found out that I am NOT a website designer or programmer. I am however a gardener and I really do like to write about my gardening experiences. Last year I only wrote a few entries even though the garden year went really well. There was so much to write about, I just didn't write. I didn't write on Blogger, or Typepad or even on paper at an actual garden desk. I lost my way and my title didn't even make sense anymore.

So I had to ask myself, "where do I go from here?" Do I give up blogging or writing on the computer and go back to writing with pen and paper while present in the garden? That does have some charm but what I got from blogging that I didn't get from my personal garden desk was interacting with other garden bloggers. I really loved commenting on and reading comments from others doing the same things that I was doing. I developed many virtual friends and it made garden blogging fun. Trying to create a gardening website was not fun.

So I once again am coming back to Typepad and "blogging" about my actual gardening experiences. I have nothing against Blogger. It's just that Typepad works better for me. I apologize if any of you have stayed with me over these changes and have had to change links or rss feeds. Unfortunately I am asking you to change one more time. Thanks for your patience. I am hopeful that 2011 will be a great gardening year and garden blogging year. I will mainly be writing about my personal gardening, but will mix in general "articles" as well. I would love to learn how to write for magazines someday so these are sortof practices for that.

I actually wrote a few "articles" when I was trying to develop the website which I want to re-post here as actual GardenDesk posts. The next few posts will be those. If you are one of the few people who actually saw them when they were "pages", please come back soon or subscribe to my feed because there will be new material very soon.

Thanks for letting me get focused with this post. I hope you all have a great 2011 and a great gardening season.

Thanks and God Bless!

 

7 Random Things About Me

I have been tagged by Tracy who blogs at Outside in a meme called "7 Random Things About Me". Being picked is a honor, but I usually write about my garden - not about me. So I'm not sure what to write. While I'm thinking, you can read the 7 things Tracy wrote about herself.

Okay, here goes - seven random things:

1. I went through the classes to become certified as a "Master Gardener" back in 1995 through The Purdue University Cooperative Extension Service. It was really great even though I was the youngest one in the class by far. As part of the service hours required in the program, I wrote gardening articles for the local newspaper and taught composting seminars at the Gardens Alive retail store in Lawrenceburg Indiana. I was also honored to be employed by Gardens Alive at that time. I worked for them a couple weekends per month as a "product consultant" (okay maybe that was two things).

2. I married my high school sweetheart! We have been married for almost 17 years, but we have been together for 24 years. Pretty cool, huh?

3. My regular job is with a Television Production Company. We make all sorts of videos, commercials and TV related things. At home I watch very little TV.

4. from 2001 to 2005, I almost stopped gardening entirely because I was spending all my free time working in Children's Ministry and performing magic shows for summer camps, vacation bible schools and churches.

5. I can't stand mustard! As a kid, I ate only a few different kinds of food. As an adult, I've learned to like many new foods and flavors. Mustard is NOT one of them and never will be!

6. I have two wonderful daughters age 13 and 10. They are a big help in the garden and on the computer. I teach them things about gardening and they teach me things about the computer!

7. My ultimate dream is to figure out how to make gardening at home my full time thing! Maybe with a combination of market gardening and writing about gardening it could happen, who knows?

Well there you have it - seven totally random things about me. Now comes the part where I am supposed to tag seven other people to participate in "7 random things about me". This too is a hard decision, but these are the people I am tagging:

The first two are the first two blogs that I followed before I began blogging. Because of that, they have become among my very favorites. First is Skippy's Vegetable Garden. Skippy is a dog. the blog is written by his owner. I'll let her decide if she wants to tell things about her or about Skippy. The other blog is Compost Bin by Anthony.

3 and 4 on my list I am picking because they are the closest in the blogosphere to me geographically and they have wonderful blogs. They are Kasmira at Cincinnati Cape Cod and Kerry of Kerry's Garden.

Next are two blogs written by people who have great blogs and seem to me to be very nice. I would like to know more about them. They are Edible Landscaping and Gotta Garden.

Lastly, I am picking Kenny from Veggie Gardening Tips. Kenny doesn't seem to be the meme type to me, but I would love to know more about him. What I already know is that he is a real pro. He knows more about gardening, and specifically organic gardening, than anyone I know.

So to recap my list, I tag:

• Skippy's Vegetable Garden
• Compost Bin
• Cincinnati Cape Cod
• Kerry's Garden
• Edible Landscaping
• Gotta Garden
• Veggie Gardening Tips

  If you are one of those people, here are the rules that Tracy wrote in her post:

  Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to then report this on their own blog with their 7 random facts as well as these rules. They then need to tag 7 others and list their names on their blog. They are also asked to leave a comment for each of the tagged, letting them know they have been tagged and to read the blog.

  Thank you Tracy for including me in your list.