You’re still in time to sign in and take the webinar tomorrow (Thursday May 1, at 8pm EST) night. No registration necessary (just show up) and I’ll be answering questions from folks who are there and asking. To take the webinar go to this url tomorrow night and follow the simple directions on the page.
As the page indicates, you can dial in and listen over the telephone or you can click-in and listen (and ask questions) over the Net. Even dialup listeners had no problems last week.
Last week’s webinar was posted here. You can listen to the webinar and then check out the posts from folks who took it.
Those who went gaga over the shoes Crocs might want to rush out and pick up a pair just about any day now. Apparently the company has fallen on tough times, the stock price has fallen and a factory has been closed.
I’ve never been able to even force myself to even think about wearing something like this. Yeah, I know folks think they’re comfortable but really, when you drop a rock on your toe, you want steel there. Not some bit of croccy-plastic. Real gardeners protect their feet - give me some steel-toed crocs and I might have gone with you. But otherwise…. nah.
photo credit: Harpersbizarre
So what’s with the changes here? What are you doing now?
I can almost hear some of this type of comment from readers as they take a look at the changing blog layout (again).
So here’s the real deal and my take on one aspect of the garden blogging world as it sits today.
First of all, the majority of readers here are also bloggers. Interesting bit of data but one that’s repeated over and over across the Net. If you read blogs, you tend to be a blogger yourself or involved in some other Net way (forums etc). It’s actually a bit of a loop, garden bloggers tend to talk to themselves and each other a lot. 
So if you’re not a blogger, this might not be of interest to you and you can stay tuned for an increasing flow of garden related info in subsequent posts. If you are a blogger, let me give you a bit of an insight into how I currently see blogging.
My primary consideration is reader reaction. I measure this with stats packages and other less esoteric ways that don’t concern us right now. If I’m doing my job, my readers become better gardeners or more informed or whatever, but they show me this kind of thing in the underlying stats of the blog over time.
A few months ago, I went with a magazine format and this had immediate impacts on readership. The most glaring was that income went up. I made more money from the magazine format than I made from other formats. Fascinating stuff and I learned a lot from looking at how that happened. But I also learned that my primary objective in involving readers was somehow not working the way I had wanted. And my writing frequency had changed because of the demands of working within a fully featured content management system. it had gone down because it took more time to post. And my readers responded in various ways.
But I made more money.
Let me digress for a minute and tell you about Google. Google engineers are trying to develop a system of evaluating websites using their mathematical formula that mimic a human brain. (Terminator fans - Skynet step one) To do this (in very simple terms as I currently understand it) they divide Googles’ operations into short term and long term memory. And they measure thousands of variables about each website they spider.
So for example, a bounce rate (the time a visitor stays on a site) is an important measure of how visitors react to your site. I’m told the average blog has bounce rate of 75% within the first 3 seconds. In other words, 75% of all visitors will stay on your blog less than 3 seconds. Only about 1% will stay for a minute or more. And yes, this will vary slightly from blog to blog. This is partially because blogs tend to be date oriented. The structure of a blog is date based, with the most recent on top and the oldest hidden. Few folks search for old news or old posts. Google sees this and classes blogs as short term memory. You rise to the top of the search engines fast and you disappear just as quickly on the downslope; put into the supplemental index faster and then dropped faster.
In contrast, websites have hierarchical structures and are not date based. Bounce rates are much better on websites and visitors tend to stay longer. For these and other reasons, Google classes websites as long term memory. You rise slower but stay in the main index longer.
This means if you want to work with Google on short term memory items (news and views) you use a blog. If you want to work with Google on longer term material, you use a website.
So what does this mean for the average garden blogger?
it means that garden blogging is wonderful for some kinds of objectives. If you want to blog to meet other gardeners - an over the backyard electronic fence kind of thing - blogging is perfect. If you want to rant, rave or pass along current news, blogging is great software and Google will short term love you. If you want to pass along many different trains of thought, blogging is perfect. But if you want to write great gardening tips that will be found for a long time, blogging isn’t the software (remember as a rule of thumb, blog posts will be forgotten more quickly than website pages) And while there are exceptions to this; this is the general pattern of how Google treats blogs and websites.
So what’s that got to do with anything here?
Glad you asked. Long term readers know that I’m constantly experimenting, trying to figure out the best technologies to help other gardeners learn and become better gardeners. That’s what I do for a living - for over 30 years now. In one form or other, my life’s work has been to teach gardening skills and promote the use of plants as a lifestyle. This is just the latest incarnation.
So the magazine theme increased my income but reduced other more important variables that I wanted to achieve from this software platform. This means the format really wasn’t working in the long run and it had to be changed. Really, I don’t blog to make money. I established a very long time ago that garden blogging was never going to make enough money to justify the time spent on it. So you blog for other reasons. In my case, I want a fast platform to share news stories, quick tidbits, pictures, video etc. All things of interest but probably not of lasting importance to Google - but things that one of my reader segments like to read and don’t fit on any website or newsletter.
Reader segments? What are you talking about. Well, you know that I have a newsletter as one segment, a forum for some folks, this blog for some folks, a seminar series for others. Everybody learns and works in different ways so my enjoyment in garden writing is delivering systems to help as many as possible. As I said on my webinar video last week, I’m having way too much fun doing all this stuff! Seriously, it’s a lot more fun than digging and selling perennials in freezing rain in April.
I’m very fortunate in my life’s work. I get to work with plants, write about them and actually make enough money to afford a few toys. I love what I do and I try to do the best I can do with the tools I have.
Blogging doesn’t make much money but it’s a heck of a lot of fun and it meets the needs of a chunk of my readers. The magazine format was getting in the way of this so it had to go.
And that’s why I’ve just deleted the magazine format and why this looks pretty plain. I’ll likely search around for another blog theme that catches my fancy but for now, I’m enjoying plain and simple. Back to basics and having a good time doing it.
So stay tuned, I’ve once again started to rethink blogging and what I want to use it for. And you gentle readers will once again, in your own ways, show me dramatically if I’m on the right or wrong track. The only thing I can tell you is that I’m having a great time doing it and I hope you’re equally amused at your end.
Here’s my take on one of the hottest gardening “solutions” being offered up to unsuspecting gardeners this season. An accident waiting to happen.
One of the biggest “solutions” being offered up by chemical gardening fans is the “environmentally-friendly” water absorbing chemicals. The premise is that you mix this material into your soil and it absorbs moisture. It then slowly releases this moisture for your plants. You have a way to fight off drought and water stress.
But let’s look at it a little closer.
Is it organic? And is it environmentally friendly?
Let’s examine the nature of whether it is organic or not. The first thing to understand is that the material in question (one of them anyway) is something called “acrylamide”. The National Cancer Institute gives us this definition, “Acrylamide is a chemical compound that occurs as a solid crystal or in liquid solution. Its primary use is to make polyacrylamide and acrylamide copolymers. Trace amounts of the original (unreacted) acrylamide generally remain in these products. Polyacrylamide and acrylamide copolymers are used in many industrial processes, including production of paper, dyes, and plastics, and the treatment of drinking water, sewage and waste. “
This is a chemical process - a copolymer - and is so far removed from organic treatments as to be a non-contender.
I note that acrylamide is found in some cooked (mostly burned) foods (hence the thought that they might be “natural”) but is a recognized carcinogen. Is is not found in raw foods and it is heavily concentrated in cigarette smoke.
Here’s the link to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and what they have to say.
The Global Garden (Australia) interviewed Dr. Peter May about these horticultural products and this was his reaction to the question, Are wetting agents environmentally damaging? “For soil wetting agents to work effectively, they cannot be too readily bio-degradable or their effectiveness will be very transitory.”
So we have cancer causing products that are not readily biodegradable. Hmm, doesn’t sound very “organic” to me.
ACORN (The Atlantic Canadian Organic Regional Network) states pretty clearly, “Organic producers should always check the label before purchasing a commercial transplant mix. Many commercial products contain synthetic wetting agents which are prohibited under organic standards. If any of the ingredients on the commercial mix are questionable, producers should check with their certification body before making a purchase.”
Hmmm, “prohibited under organic standards”.
I think that takes care of the organic nature of this “solution” to dry soils. If you’re an organic gardener, you’re not going to be using this stuff. Not in containers, not in the ground. It just isn’t organic and can be dangerous if misused.
Now to the next question. Is it environmentally friendly? Well, it’s not organic. It is persistent and it will have a negative effect on the soil microorganisms. Is this friendly?
Not likely.
I believe we’re left with the marketing notion of “environmentally friendly”. In other words, we can’t call it “organic” because its not (and that’s a regulated word) so we’ll call it “environmentally friendly” - a great marketing word-combination that’s applied to darn near anything in today’s increasingly green-conscious world. The word combination isn’t regulated so you can call anything you want “environmentally friendly”.
Just a little
Let’s briefly look at the notion that you could use this “just a little” because it works and it would make your garden a little better in a drought.
Using non-organics is a statement. And that statement is, “My desire to grow this plant outweighs the possible consequences of polluting my environment, that of my family and that of my neighbours.” You can apply this kind of thinking to any agricultural chemical - from Roundup to Wetting Agents to Weed and Feed.
Is a little a bad thing? Well, I guess that’s for every gardener to judge and every gardener to make the decision. And you do. A few years ago now, researchers pointed out that urban and suburban gardeners used approximately 4 times the amounts of active chemicals per acre of ground than our farmers did. So a little bit extra here and a little bit extra there and pretty soon you have a polluted landscape. Nobody really “did it” but it’s there nevertheless. This figure may have altered somewhat but from the stacks of weed and feed at our local garden centers this past weekend, I suspect not a lot. Many of you or your neighbors chose to pollute in order to kill off a few yellow flowers.
So is a little wetting agent, a soil watering aid, a bad thing?
Is your need worth polluting your own garden? And your family’s? Neighbours?
Folks - this is where we all run into problems. Where’s the line between “normal” living and “green” living. Is it OK to use a teaspoon of detergent (essentially a wetting agent) in several gallons of water to aid in spraying an organic product? Is it OK to mix this chemical (doing a similar kind of thing) into your soil? Where’s the line here?
There are things we all do that are not completely organic. Heck, I get up in the morning and put on clothes that aren’t totally organic (as do we all). Where’s the line?
This is, quite frankly, something I struggle with constantly as a gardener and as a writer. When I put it “out there” in writing, I damn well better be sure I’m prepared to stand up in my own gardening practices as well.
So my line on this product is clear. I don’t use it. It’s not remotely organic nor even close.
There are gardening practices that accomplish the same thing so why go down this chemical route? (Heavy mulch in gardens and larger containers or more frequent watering in containers).
Bottom line: I don’t use - don’t recommend it as a tool for good gardeners.
And like all things, if you can prove that wetting agents are “organic” and certifiable, then I’ll welcome your research and links and to me learning something new.
photo credit: selva
If you’re in the DC region, you might want to check out this exhibit. No, you *will* want to check out this exhibit. Won’t you?
From the News Release
On February 15, 2008 the National Museum of Natural History opened its doors and invited visitors to feel the flutter™ in one of its most educational, entertaining and experiential exhibits to date. To help visitors get an up-close and unique look at how butterflies and plants have evolved and diversified together over millions of years, Butterflies features: (more…)
One of the things I really like to do is get a handle on how things work from both sides of an issue. I do this with almost every gardening thing that comes along - from chemical use to .. well, to Louisiana Mulch. Somehow I had a sense that the “problem” wasn’t quite as it was being described in the news release from the conservation group. (Anybody who believes every news release they get doesn’t get very many) 
(more…)
