The Forget-me-Not’s 1st Anniversary and the 100th Post

Finite to fail, but infinite to venture  – Emily Dickinson

I can hardly quite believe it myself.  I’ve been blogging the Forget-me-Not Cultivation blog for one whole year, where has that time gone?  Very quickly I can tell you.

Back to the future

It’s been the most fantastic year of blogging for me.  When I began this blog I really only had two ideas in mind; one was to keep my Life Ticket accountable by making sure I achieved things off my list and the other was to make as many people enjoy growing veggies as much as I do.

However the blog has always been much bigger than that,

The first ever blog post discussed my protest march in London, where I was shown first hand how important it is to stand up for your beliefs.

As the year has gone on I’ve learnt all about habits, grown many varieties of chillies, photographed everything from a Lego dinner to a JRT portrait and lost 2.5 stone in weight.

I’ve examined my thoughts on nuclear power, what it means to live a life more simple and asked about recycling rates with my local council and others.

My biggest passion, in my own garden, has been to try and show how easy it is to have a go at growing veg, in any space. Like growing runner beans, or making gardening easier because we all live in such busy times.

My blog has also been to document my own growing adventures into self-sufficiency all the good and the difficult stuff along the way.

And through it all, you have been along with me, reading as I go which makes this blog even more extra special in my eyes.

Along the journey I’ve connected with so many people, not only through my blog, but other like-minded bloggers too and it’s been really nice to talk about jogging, or weeds, or why writing can be so hard.

When I started my blog I didn’t actually (as stupid as it now seems) envisage connecting with anyone as it was just an outlet for my ideas, my challenges, my frustrations and my life experiences.

Turns out though that other people like what I write and I like what they write and suddenly I’m connecting with some pretty dedicated, artistic, hard working people which I thoroughly enjoy.  Thank you.

Here are a few photographs taken along the way…

The Lake District

Minifigs

Sparrow Hawk

Alliums

Mouse

Shoeburyness Beach

Runner Beans

Onions

Mouse

Pylons

Savoy cabbage

Apple espallier

People’s Park, Grimsby

Swede plants

Loco F1

Mouse

Statistic Time

WordPress informs me that since starting to blog back on the 24th October 2012, Forget-me-Not Cultivation blog has had:

• 9635 views
• Over 800 comments
• 270 people follow the blog
• My highest view on any post, in a single day  was 224 views
• It’s been viewed around the world in 62 different countries

I’m rather impressed and over the moon that so many people want to read my muse.

Stepping up and tweaking

Of course now that the all important first year is out the way I think it’s fair to say I like blogging and I’ve learnt a hell of a lot. Not just about blogging itself but how my ideas and thoughts and processes around the blog have developed as it’s moved on.  And move on it shall.

I’m going to start tweaking bits of the blog.

One important area that I failed to take notice of when I started blogging about gardening and growing your own was that nature and wildlife in the garden play a huge (I mean humongous) part of the space we have to call our own.

In fact I realised that you don’t even need to grow any type of fruit, vegetable or herb to make a strong difference in the world – there are other ways of making an impact – like growing trees, or feeding the birds.

So I’m going to expand the blog out a little more and focus on wildlife gardening as well. This includes blogging about our garden and all the wildlife related adventures that happen throughout the year.

I need to learn a lot more about things like wild flowers and the bird calls in our garden but I’m looking forward to finding out and I’m on a quest to make my garden as wildlife friendly as it possibly can be.

In fact I’m so avid about this area I’ve created a new page (at the top of the blog) called the Pledge of Good, which may or may not sound corny – I’m not sure.

Anyway, this pledge is to let you know what I want this blog to focus on – it’s core messages if you like, and who it’s for, well you and me of course. 

In the next 12 months I’m hoping to  get a lot more creative writing done, understand more about habits and get a few more things ticked off my Life Ticket.

I hope you join me along the way to share in the new changes, and more than anything I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks ever so much for reading this blog, you guys ROCK! 🙂

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