Gardening: How to Use a Garden Blog

Obviously if you are reading this post you have discovered the world of garden blogging, but do you know how it can help you in your garden? Do you know how to best utilize garden blogs for your benefit? I have a tip that may give you a few ideas, but first let's look at what garden blogging is about. There are garden blogs from all over our country and the world where each individual gardener discusses what is most important to him or her. There are garden blogs that discuss ideas from designing a landscape to vegetable gardening to propagating plants. There are blogs who rant about issues, some that are authored by groups of talented gardeners, and at least one about gardening naked (relax, it's just a metaphor!). Some blogs document garden transformations while others are about botanical gardens or are photo blogs with spectacular images to drool over (don't do that too much, computers and drool don't mix).

I'm sure you can see that garden blogs can be a great source for inspiration and ideas. When you look at a garden blogger's blog and what they have planted in their garden you can immediately see how the gardener has utilized those plants. What combinations worked and what didn't, or just as importantly what plants you like and what you don't.

So how exactly should you use a garden blog? While there is no set of rules for using garden blogs here are a few ideas.

Find a garden blog near where you live or at least within the same state or province. This way you can see plants and gardening ideas that would work in your climate.
Look for garden bloggers that talk about the type of gardening you like. Whether you like cottage gardening, vegetable gardening, or container gardening there's a blog out there!
Familiarize yourself with the archives. This is probably the least used resource on the blog. Each blog contains a wealth of information that may not be on the front page. Once you find the archives look for a date to see what that garden blogger was talking about on that day. You can get ideas for plants that bloom on a certain date or what to do in the vegetable garden in any given month. At the time of my writing this post I have 760 posts on this blog. A handful never made it to the front page but the rest are where? In the archives! If the blog has a search function it can help narrow down what you are looking for with just a few well chosen words.
Talk to the gardener through comments! If you have a question either post anonymously on a post or sign up for an account with whatever blogger service the blogger uses. Often people will comment offering tips or ideas in the comments and they can be just as useful as the posts themselves so it's a good idea to read through them.
Don't forget to suscribe to the blog(s). Many blogs (I don't know of any that don't) offer subscription services. Subscription services beam the blog to your email or to a feedreader where you can conveniently peruse your favorite sites all together. Sometimes bloggers don't post on a daily basis and this helps you know when a new post is up and ready to read.

Now you have some ideas on how to use garden blogs, but what garden blogs should you use? A good place to start is my sidebar where I have a list of all kinds of bloggers from Tennessee and beyond. Your options are limitless! But if you want a few specific places in Tennessee to go to try these:

Fairegarden with Frances for Monet-like pictures of her hillside garden.
Clay and Limestone for Gail's philosophical garden musings.
In the Garden for Tina's great gardening tips.
Turning Toward the Sun for Gloria Ballard's (The Tennessean garden writer) garden thoughts.

There are way too many great blogs out there to list them all but if you go out exploring the garden blog world you are bound to find someone who will have just the right garden talk to match your interests. Hopefully you're looking at it right now!