Organic Gardener

Find a Gardening Blog near you

Author: Susan Harris

Remember way back in the 1990s when blogs were either personal journals or political shoutfests?  Well, blogs have come a long way since then and now the so-called "blogosphere" is full of lively, up-to-the-minute discourse on every topic known to mankind, including gardening.  There's still confusion about what exactly blogs are though, so if you're not familiar,here's a great 2-minute explanation

Gardening blogs run the gamut from journals of the blogger's own garden to reviews of books and magazines, from how-to articles to don't-do-what-I-did confessions, from dishing the dirt about their local garden centers to voting for the "Sexiest Men in Gardening", and from humorous takes on challenges in the garden to more serious opinion pieces about the environmental issues facing gardeners today.  Gardenbloggers are passionate gardeners sharing that passion with gardeners all over the world via the Internet with the help of free or very low-cost blogging software that's easy to use, even for the IT-challenged among us (like yours truly).  So, ready to do some browsing?

Gardenblog Directories

• The Cold Climate Gardening Blog Directory contains meaty descriptions of each blog listed.
• Garden Voices's excerpts of hundreds of gardenblogs are refreshed daily.
• Because sometimes gardeners need super-local advice from bloggers who grow plants in the same climate and region, or just want to find out what's going on in their part of the gardening world, I created a directory of Gardenblogs by Region.
• And don't miss Blotanical, the worldwide blogging directory on steroids.  Over 830 bloggers have registered with Blotanical, where blogs are arranged by continent, country, state and city, which makes browsing the blog maps a whole lotta fun.  (Notice in the illustration how many blogs are listed for just the U.K.!)  You'll discover gardenbloggers near you or as far away as India, Lebanon and Singapore.  Social networking opportunities like forums and contests are also available on Blotanical for bloggers and nonblogging gardeners alike.
  

If you're a gardenblogger yourself and want more readers, the directories are all free, so get listed!

Subscribe to updates
And here's just one more cool video for you.  It explains the best possible way to read blogs of any type, and that's by subscribing to a "feedreader" that compiles updates or feeds from all the blogs you want to follow.  While the video shows a couple of different ways to subscribe to updates, I've found that Google Reader is the absolute easiest, and it does not involve the sending of e-mail messages that only add to the clutter in your inbox.

Shameless plug
No blogger worth her domain name would write about blogs without mentioning her own, and neither would I, though I promise to be brief.  My Sustainable Gardening Blog covers that topic, plus the occasional off-topic adventure covering books, movies, or what's happening in Washington, D.C.  I hope youll also visit me at the award-winning team blog GardenRant, where you'll find hot topics of the day, garden and plant stories, and plenty of humor.

And wherever your blog-browsing takes you, remember that bloggers LOVE it when readers leave comments, so don't be shy.

Help us to spread the word:

Susan Harris

Susan is a Gardening Coach, GardenRant blogger, Master Gardener, garden writer, and activist for urban and suburban greening. She is an active writer and contributer to the gardening community.
Read more about Susan.

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