Goodbye – and thank you
This is the end of the Diggin' It garden blog. It's been fun.
The blog got its online start two years ago when the Monitor decided to add an online Gardening section. For the blog's name, we revived Diggin' It from a little garden column that I began writing for the print newspaper back in 1999.
For a year, I was the sole blogger.I wrote about judging the annual Massachusetts tomato contest (a highlight of my summer), several stories about sunflowers and bees, chronicled the efforts to get the Obamas to plant a kitchen garden, and frequently took readers "garden siteseeing" on the Web, among many other topics.
Then rosarian Lynn Hunt began sharing her knowledge of the Queen of Flowers and Craig Summers Black joined in from Iowa. And last summer, we were joined by a stable of other outstanding gardeners and garden writers: Doreen Howard, Donna Williamson, Penelope O'Sullivan, Karan Davis Cutler, Mary-Kate Mackey, and Betty Earl. (Click on their names to read any or all of their blog posts. Donna has a new blog here and Mary-Kate has one here.)
These writers been very popular with readers, and we at the Monitor can't thank them enough for all they've contributed.
So, why is the blog ending? Basically, I'm leaving the Monitor, to move back to the South, and so the paper's management made a decision not to continue it.
Thank you very much for being fans. Thanks for letting us know when we hit the mark and when you thought we'd missed it. Thank you for your comments on what you liked and didn't. Mostly, though, thanks for visiting over and over. You're what kept us going.
Not only will I miss interacting with the Gardening site's several thousand loyal visitors each day, so will all the other bloggers. We all feel a bit sad, but are moving on to other things. (Look for my new herb book next spring!)
And, oh yes, we realize we're leaving with some unfinished business -- our current Flickr photo contest, for pictures of spring. It ends at midnight April 30 and will be judged early next week. When the winners are chosen, we will announce them at the bottom of this post.
Happy gardening!
