Happy New Year and Blogroll
Happy New Year
This is a sort of administrative post I guess. First of all, Happy New Year to everyone. I can’t possibly send email greetings to everyone I know any more, there are just too many of you, so I’ll assume if you’re a reader of this blog, you’ll hear it from me here.
Blogroll
The second thing is you may have noticed my blogroll disappeared again. If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you’ll notice every once in a while I delete or completely rearrange it.
The problem is basically this. As a blogger I really put a lot of value in operating independently, speaking my own mind and not having any commercial influences. The reality is however, as free of commercial influences as I am, I’m hugely dependent on Google and other search engines for a large portion of my readership. Most people first encounter this blog in search engine results, and sometimes go on to become a regular reader. The more visible I am in search engine results, the more seriously people take this blog and the more it becomes a familiar name to them.
Search engines like Google count links and value of links when it decides how important a site is. If Google thinks I’m an important site, then when I link somewhere else it thinks this is unusually important too. In this way I am able to help other bloggers or websites improve their position in Google, and I see this as an important part of what I do. We all want to help make one another important. We all want what we feel is important to be more visible to others.
Unfortunately, all this ‘link love’ comes at a price. If I put up too many links, especially in my blogroll, search engines notice this and deduct ‘points’ from me. If you’re a smaller and less known site or if you have too many links yourself especially of a commercial nature, Google probably thinks you’re a low valued site, wonders why I’m linking to you and deducts even more points for my link to you.
Search Engine Optimization
I routinely do what’s called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. I’ve written some posts about this before, and if you search on Google you will find them. I make this blog more friendly for search engines.
I changed to a new domain name recently, bifurcatedcarrots.eu and at the same time changed the structure of my site a little. Part of the reason for doing this was SEO.
Anyway, it’s clear the next step in SEO is a blogroll cleanup.
I’ve removed the blogroll completely for now, and in the coming weeks and months I’ll be experimenting with returning some entries. Unfortunately, the entries most likely to come back are those of well established websites! It’s not that I’m too special to include links to smaller sites, or I prefer the big ones. In fact the opposite is true. I usually think the smaller more personal sites are more interesting to read, and I would prefer to promote them.
I’m sorry if I end up deleting your entry in my blogroll. I’ll try to make up for it a bit by mentioning more blogs in posts. To the extent I think I can within the guidelines of SEO, I’ll try to put back some of the entries over time.
As unfriendly and cold as this advice might seem, if you want to make it more likely I will put you in my blogroll, you need to do SEO yourself and get other bloggers to link to you first. You have to become important, before I can help make you important! If you have any questions about this, please send an email and I’ll try to offer some more suggestions specific to your situation.
New Dutch Language Blog
I’ve started a new Dutch language blog. I’m mentioning it here mostly so Google will find it and start indexing it. I don’t think it’s going to be of great interest to many people here, even those of you who speak Dutch. You’re all welcome to stop by of course, and Google translate may be enough for you to read and understand most of it.
What’s the reason for this blog?
Since you asked, let me try to explain…
My community garden, called ‘Vlijtigveld’ (meaning busy or diligent field), has a racist and not very smart management. The name really says it all, almost in a comical way. What’s an organic gardener like me doing trying to have a lazy no-dig garden, with mulch to control weeds, in a place where we’re all supposed to be working hard??
Anyway, for 4 years now I’ve been trying to ignore the fact the management doesn’t recognize any gardening technique that’s not heavily reliant on sprays or chemical fertilizers, or any gardener that doesn’t control weeds by killing them with chemical warfare or pulling them out one at a time.
I’ve also been trying to ignore the garden management as they walk around telling any one who’ll listen about how they don’t let in any more Turkish gardeners, or how 60% of the gardeners have to be Dutch or the foreigners will get voting rights. It’s us against them, don’t you know! In this time I’ve been pretending not to notice our perimeter security fence, designed with a weak side, meaning whenever there is a break-in and a garden is vandalized, it will almost certainly belong to a Muslim gardener.
Literally, all our gardens are assigned based on ethnic origin, and the layout of the complex is planned on this basis. Because the management doesn’t want any of us teaming up against them, they avoid assigning friends adjacent gardens, and try to promote friction by assigning nearby gardens to people of conflicting ethnic origins.
Anyway, as we can all imagine, this isn’t working very well. It’s not working because it’s as much comical as anything else. The gardeners are all mostly getting along and becoming friends. The management has mostly lost the respect of everyone, Dutch and foreign. This has recently prompted a great deal of hostility from the management, gardeners are now frequently harassed by the management and often threatened with the loss of their gardens. Our drinking water was recently cut off! You’d think it was war.
So, I really don’t have the time or inclination to try to solve all the problems of our community gardens. I have no desire to join the management and try to ‘fix it’ from within. Other than a little passive aggressiveness, I’ve really been trying to keep my head down.
I want the other gardeners to get together and decide what kind of community gardens they want to have, work for it themselves, possibly with my help. To that end, I decided to start a blog to provide the gardeners, as well as anyone else with an interest in Vlijtigveld more information. As well as information it will have the views of myself, the sole American gardener. I think mostly the blog will have a lot of detailed information about how the rules are constructed, and how Dutch law might provide some help. I’ve exchanged some letters with the garden management, and I intend to publish these. It’s probably not going to make a lot of sense to most readers, but if you’re interested you’re welcome!
Luck was with me when I went searching for a domain name for this new blog. ‘Their’ domain name, vlijtigveld.nl was not in use and available for registration, so this blog is at http://vlijtigveld.nl The management are not really Internet people, so it may be some time before they notice the existence of the blog…
Reclaim the Seeds
Local seed and food organization Aseed is sponsoring a seed swap and local food fair. Bifurcated Carrots will be there with a stand on Saturday.
If you’re in the area, please come by! Entrance is free.
If you’re able to sponsor a stand or presentation on either day, please get in touch! You can either contact me, and I will put you in touch with the right person, or you can contact them directly via their websites. There is no cost to sponsor a stand. You can either give seeds and plants away at no cost, or you can sell them. You can also run an information only stand.
Purple of Sicily Cauliflower
I first wrote about this cauliflower 6 years ago. Bayu who lives in Indonesia left a comment asking if I had any spare seeds I would send for free, but I don’t have these any more. Does anyone have some seeds, or would like to buy some seeds, and send them to Indonesia for free? If so, please let me know and I’ll forward the email address.
These are pretty ordinary seeds. If you live in the US, they are available for example at Baker Creek. There are similar varieties with different names, so if you have something that looks the same it probably is.
Dan Jason and Owen Bridge on Seed Saving in Canada
Thanks to Mike who mentioned these videos in a comment on my last post. These videos are of Dan Jason of Salt Spring Seeds and The Plant Sanctuary for Canada, and Owen Bridge of Annapolis Valley Seeds, representing Canada’s two coasts at a Seedy Sunday event from earlier this year.
It’s really a great example on how in different parts of the world we have slightly different battles and laws, but in the end our overall problems and goals are the same. Here is Europe we are fighting the battle of legalizing seed saving, but in North America they’re not only fighting to keep seed saving legal, but also facing the real prospect of aggressive police action if they are unsuccessful.
Recently some laws were changed in Canada and other parts of the world like Europe to protect the pharmaceutical industry from the competition of natural foods and herbal remedies. This resulted in raids in Canada where unlicensed vitamins were confiscated by swat teams at gunpoint. It’s very possible heirloom seed companies will one day see their stocks of seeds confiscated in the same way.
We all need to act locally and think globally. We should grow seeds in our own gardens that are locally obtained and suitable for our local climate, but we shouldn’t forget seeds can be obtained elsewhere if necessary. In the same way, we should be fighting our own battles locally, but not forgetting there’s a whole world out there with other people fighting the same battle.
