July 10, 1778– Louis XVI declares war on the Kingdom of Great Britain.
July 10, 1966 – The Chicago Freedom Movement, led by Martin Luther King, Jr, holds a rally at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois.
July 10, 2008 – Susan Morrison writes her first blog post, brilliantly titled: Welcome.
Yesterday marked my three year anniversary as a blogger. I’m not much for recognizing formal milestones and routinely forget birthdays and anniversaries - including my own. But I’ve decided to mark this one with a little trip down memory lane.
How excited am I? Rebecca and I are guest posting on one of my favorite blogs today, Gardening Gone Wild. The topic is creating a sense of place. so check it out.Then come back and enter for a chance to win the fabulous H. Potter trellis. Contest closes Sunday, March 20.
Two and a half years ago, I started blogging on a whim. Unlike many of the garden blogs I visit, I don’t chronicle what I’m doing in my own garden, although I do drop in on it occasionally. I write about design, though not with the single minded focus of some of my colleagues. Sustainability is often a topic, but I don’t like preaching, even when I’m the one doing it, so as a steady diet, it doesn’t work for me. I share what I see on my travels, but since I rarely go anywhere, travel doesn’t even warrant its own category.
As long as it connects to gardening or design, even in the silliest or most tenuous of ways, I’ve considered it fair game for a blog post, so I can’t complain that I’ve hemmed myself in. Despite this, I’m finding it harder and harder to come up with topics that are both interesting to me, and potentially entertaining or informative for others to read. My post frequency, always a bit random, has become even more unpredictable. And I can’t blame it all on writing a book, since my co-author Rebecca continues to cheerfully post once or twice a week on her own blog, while simultaneously writing a gardening column for Horticulture AND blogging for Fiskars. (Random thought: Some days, I don’t like Rebecca.) Lately I’ve been considering my options, and here’s what I’ve come up with.
There’s more to life than gardening
Recently, friend and fellow Lawn Reformer Susan Harris told me she was burned out on a daily diet of garden blogging. Four years after beginning Gardenrant and her own Sustainable Gardening blog, she’s not tired of gardening, but she wants to write about other things. Last month she started a new blog called Boomer Turn-Ons, and is having a fabulous time covering entertainment, music, health and fitness – basically, any topic that catches her eye as seen through the lens of where she is in her life today. I’m loving her blog – which actually ticks me off slightly as I am old enough to be a boomer only if the most liberal definition is applied. But even though she’s expanded beyond gardening, she still has a theme to tie it all together. Somehow, “stuff Susan Morrison is thinking about today” doesn’t quite cut it.
Get Serious
I participate in a garden writer’s forum on Facebook, and it’s made me realize how lackadaisical I am in my approach to blogging. Not only have I never maintained an editorial calendar for my blog, I had to Google the term to figure out what the heck one was when several writers in the forum were comparing notes on the best way to manage one. They also apparently have so many awesome ideas to keep track of that lots of them do something called mind mapping AND they’re always furiously debating the future of publishing in an informed and passionate manner. While my mind is not currently generating enough incredible ideas that a map is required, I have created my first-ever editorial calendar. (Although this post isn’t on it, so I’m not off to a great start.)
Learning to Love you More
My conclusion: I still want to write about gardening, but need to “look outside the garden” to reignite my creativity. From an article in a recent creativity-themed O Magazine, I learned about the now defunct website Learning to Love You More, which posted various creative assignments (such as draw a constellation from someone’s freckles). The responses were later turned into a book and are archived in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection. The article invited readers to participate in a series of “un-quizzes”, ranging from making a 30 second video of yourself doing something backwards to drawing a picture of the hair of anyone who stirred you up emotionally in the past year. I’ve opted for un-quiz #3 – take a family portrait under the table. This is what Nick and I looked like after a slightly muddy, post-hike lunch this past Sunday.
Do I feel more creative? I'm not sure. But armed with my editorial calendar and a commitment to regular un-quizzes, I’m hoping to re-energize my blogging. For those of you who have been blogging for a long time, many of you with much greater frequency than me, I’d love to hear your secrets.
It’s the first week of January and you know what that means – either a post that wraps up the old year or one that welcomes in the new. As I’m always happy to let others do the heavy lifting, instead of coming up with my own forecast of what will be hot in gardening for 2011, I shamelessly plundered a garden trend predictions thread from a writers forum I belong to. While some of these may seem obvious, a few might surprise you –unless Set it and Forget It Gardening is on your list, too.
Comfort Food Reinvented
When I began a career in food marketing 20 years ago, comfort food was just coming into its own. Back then we defined it as old-fashioned classics like meatloaf and mac ‘n cheese. Now the trend is much healthier, as home gardeners are discovering that canning and preserving are not only great ways to extend the harvest, but make a surprisingly hip hobby as well. Theresa Loe, a Master Preserver (yes there is such a thing) and Associate Producer for Growing a Greener World on PBS, observes that this seemingly old-fashioned pastime began a serious comeback in 2010 and is set to explode this year. According to Theresa, “Many people are not only looking for ways to eat locally, they also care more about what is in their food. By preserving the harvest, they can have fresh-from-the-vine flavors all year long and they are assured that the food is preservative and pesticide free. And what could be more local than your own backyard?!"
Beyond Tomatoes
Edible gardening will continue to make up the fastest growing category for new gardening books and the cream of the crop will advocate new approaches. Although the traditional 4x6 raised bed will always have a place in our gardens and in our hearts, according to garden writer Daniel Gasteiger, more small space gardeners will turn to vertical strategies like trellises and hanging pocket gardens, whether they buy them already made or make them themselves. Ivette Soler passed on her prediction in the form of her new book,The Edible Front Yard, where she leads the charge on ripping out our lawns (now where have I heard that before?) to make room for a front yard filled with edible goodies instead.
Another vote for liberating produce from the distant corners of the garden comes from Steve Asbell, who predicts mixing edibles with ornamentals will become even more popular. Noted balcony-gardening expert Fern Richardson, takes it a step further by advocating using edibles as ornamentals. As to what we’re growing, forget basic broccoli or Gala apples – 2011 will feature more nurseries offering exotic versions of fruits, vegetables and herbs and the public will snap them up. And according to Steve, one of the top crops will be marijuana, at least based on "how to" book sales where he works. Steve’s passion is rainforest gardens and he also had some predictions about epiphytic cacti (whatever they are) but I liked this one better.
Frugality Meets Ingenuity
Fern predicts frugality will take a chic turn with an increase in DIY projects and crafting. With everyone who ever owned a glue gun hanging out on Etsy, I think she’s onto something. In the gardening world, Jayme Jenkins of AhaModernLiving is ahead of the curve – details on how she built a stylish and practical gutter garden (featured in Garden Up!) are right here. Fern also believes upcycling - converting worn out materials into new items of equal or greater value – will be adopted by more gardeners and I have to agree. While researching our book, Rebecca Sweet and I saw several examples of this trend, including an ingenious repurposing of a file drawer into a hanging planter. And you already know how I feel about Peace Lady.
But Darling, That’s the Butler’s Job
Of course, not everyone has “be more frugal” or “master a new skill” on their New Year’s resolution list. Theresa notes a trend towards lazy locavore companies – gardening services that will plant and maintain vegetable gardens for those who want to eat locally but lack the time or expertise. Daniel also believes the gardening entrepreneurs of 2011 will find a way to tap into a growing desire to “grow your own food without gardening. The popular term will be ‘kit gardening’ and will provide a ‘set it and forget it’ approach, such as a deck salad garden in a box: open it, set out the containers and just add water.” You heard it here first, folks.
Vertical Gardening
Come on, you knew I’d have to include this, right? But vertical gardening doesn’t really need its own category. As you can see from the above predictions, vertical garden crosses just about every trend, and is one of the reasons writing Garden Up! with Rebecca was so much fun – there was no shortage of material. It’s the perfect solution for growing more in less space (Chapter 4 – Urban Gardens), ideal for lazy vegetable gardeners who want something prefabricated and simple only a few steps from the kitchen door (Chapter 5- Edible Gardens), includes practical advice on mixing edibles and ornamentals (Chapter 2 - Skinny Spaces) and provides numerous options for DIY projects and upcycling (Chapter 6 – Living Walls).
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