About Inconstant Gardener

Why Inconstant Gardener?

Every gardener aspires to perfection, however idiosyncratically each of us defines that perfection.

And every gardener falls short of perfection.

I find the shortfalls the fun part to write about. Yes, I strive always for improvement. Well, almost always; there is that Inconstant part. But I want to grow better and more beautiful flowers and shrubs and trees, tastier and healthier vegetables. I also want to work towards a garden that supports a healthier ecosystem for plants and animals.

Okay, I don’t want poison ivy, and I’m choosy about the animals. I draw the line at critters like deer, ticks, Colorado potato beetles, and a few others. Not that they always notice. In fact, for me gardening serves up daily reminders that we humans need to calm down and stop thinking we can control the universe. It’s hard enough trying to control a vegetable patch. Nature serves up regular doses of humility which, if we take them appropriately, may help us become more human as we get more attuned to nature.

I may write a lot about plants and pests, tools and the occasional triumph, but those are likely to be intertwined with ruminations about social justice, public health, social change, and like matters, because my time in the garden prompts such thoughts for me. If those are not your thing, you can ignore those parts, or find other blogs that better suit your tastes. Plenty of great ones out there!

The plan, and then plan B

Originally I planned a round of weekly posts of different types, rotated through the month. During the winter of 2020-21, though, things got a bit crazy. (You may have noticed that in your own life, too.) I have high hopes of getting back into more regular posts, every month at least. Weekly remains a distant ideal.

You may find in those posts:

• recaps of what’s been going on in the garden, or indoors during off-season 
• interviews with other gardeners and with garden experts (feel free to volunteer to be interviewed!)
• virtual visits to various gardens around the country, maybe even around the world
• riffs on cooking food or making crafts with things that come out of the garden
• reviews or at least mentions of items of interest to gardeners: a book or film or possibly some really handy tool

All of that tied in with reflections on the larger world outside, as those occur to me.

Keep up

If you like what you see on the site, you can use the little signup widget on the right side of the page to subscribe to the e-mail newsletter. For the foreseeable future that will just be a short notification whenever a new post goes up. I think I can safely promise that you won’t ever get those notifications more than once a week.

Speak up!

I hope this will be a space where we can have lots of interaction, not just between me and you-the-reader, but also among readers. I put questions for comment at the end of each post, but you can raise your own. I’ve always found fellow gardeners a wonderfully generous bunch (sometimes too generous—think: zucchini in high season), and there are plenty of questions, experiences, and insights to share. If you want to comment on a post, you need to provide an e-mail address, but no one but me will see that address.

Your first comment using a given e-mail address may be held for a few hours to a day, so I can review it to make sure it’s not spam. But once you have one approved comment with that e-mail address, your comments should go up automatically.

If people have posted comments before you, you’ll find the commenting “Leave a Reply” form under their comments, so scroll down in the page to make your mark. Or read the others’ comments first, and feel free to reply to one of them. 

If you like a post and want to share it, please do so. Between the post and the comments, you can find sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, even LinkedIn. You can also share on Instagram, but to do that you’ll need to copy the URL for the post, and paste it into your Instagram post.

And about privacy..

I do hope that you, dear kind green-inclining human, will offer comments often, even if you have to wait a bit to see your words on the site. Your e-mail address will be kept private, whether you provide it for the notifications or for commenting. I have tried to pick the most secure e-mail list application possible to handle your private information. You will never be required to volunteer any information beyond what’s necessary to do what you want to do on the site, although you can share your own website URL on the comments if you like. I will never sell or share your e-mail address. If you want, you can take a look at the more legalesey Privacy Policy.

Now, please hop to the Blog, and dig in! I hope you come back often.

And please recommend Inconstant Gardener to any friends you think might be interested.

Please note:

If you want to communicate with me directly, you can email me at HecateFoley at gmail dot com. I love to hear from my readers!