Preamble

The other day I said to my husband, "I'm thinking about starting a gardening blog."
He'd just been sleeping, so he didn't have much to say to that beyond, "Hrmn?"
Needing no more prompting than this confused grunt, I proceeded to rattle off my list of reasons. I do that a lot.

Firstly, I want to write. For years I've considered starting a blog just for the joy of writing, but I'm a lazy, elitist asshole who refuses to publish pages of drivel on the world wide web without first having something in particular to say. Now, my growing preoccupation with plants has given me something to write about.

Secondly, I need me some green-thumbed friends. I don't know if there are any gardening clubs in this city, but I didn't find any with a simple Google search. I figure that I'll find other gardeners to connect with just by becoming an active member of a blogging community.

Having by now rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, my husband piped up. "Doesn't Home Depot have a garden club?"
"Yeah, I looked into that, but it's bullshit: e-mail advertisements and how-to videos on their site. No real community as far as I can tell."
"Ah."

Thirdly, whenever I use the web to research plants and plant care, blogs are one of the four primary types of sites that I find most helpful, the other three being gardening forums, online plant stores and your garden variety (chortle!) informational and instructional sites. I would like to contribute to this great library of information that is teh interwebs.

Fourthly, I want to shove pictures of my pretty, pretty flowers in everybody's face. I want to share my triumphs and my failures, the knowledge gained through my mistakes, and the joys of gardening as I discover them. I want to brag and bitch and then get some feedback to make it all feel worthwhile.

"Sounds like a good idea," he said.

So, here come the pages of drivel . . . about gardening, mostly.