Ramon Gonzales, a writer for Treehugger.com, recently published a list of his current 10 favorite gardening websites, and I’m pleased to be included in his list.
I’ve known Ramon as Mr. Brown Thumb for a number of years now. He was one of the original garden bloggers, probably the first well known one from the Chicago area, and now very active with the preservation of heirloom varieties. Even though we’ve known each other, our paths strangely rarely cross, almost never commenting on each others blogs or participating elsewhere in the same discussions.
One of the things he said in the article linked to above is:
Unfortunately, the search engine results can be gamed and the best gardening websites aren’t always at the top of search results.
This is getting to be incredibly true by now. Not just search engines, but site statistics and even supposedly private website log files, are all being gamed these days. It’s getting to the point where such a huge percentage of the Internet traffic is manipulated by a few large companies, or people that pay these companies, that no one can tell anymore which sites exist because of commercial interests or the quality of their content, what’s popular and what’s not. The only reliable thing we have left is word of mouth.
Not only does this list of garden websites include some of my favorites, but I also think Ramon himself is worth keeping an eye on.
Well, I enjoyed following MrBrownThumb for about half a year now, and had no idea what his real name was! Thanks to his Treehugger article, I just found you! What an amazing perspective — from Chicago to the Netherlands! Look forward to following you!
Emmon, thanks for visiting and leaving a comment. I’m looking forward to having you as part of this blog!
Er…Until I looked at that top 10 I almost thought you were being serious there for a second!