Soilman

Shock news: Many visitors to this blog come via an “allotment blog” search in Google. Obviously I’d love a slice of the “midget sex” market, too, but for now I’m stuck with allotments.

This is not a sexy Search market. Even in the peak gardening interest period (early Spring), “allotment blog” gets stuck into Google just 100 times a day. And all by Brits (source: Google insights for search).

Some of you have been blogging about allotmenteering a lot longer than me, and you’ll know what a tumbleweed trap ‘allotments’ is. It’s pathetically parochial (nobody outside the UK knows what an allotment is) and until recently it was old blokes in flat caps who’d never even seen a computer, let alone touched one.

But wow, how things change. Check it out: there are now some folks paying for Search advertising on “allotment blog”. Astonishing.

They’re mostly advertising for start-up community gardening sites, no doubt supported (eventually) by advertising from the industry. And good luck to them. It’s lovely to see anyone giving a shit about allotments… especially now there’s (apparently) a few quid in them there hills.

But you know what? I thought I’d just take this opportunity to mention – while the allotmenteering space is commercialising all around us – that if you don’t want to pay for advice, or be advertised at in return for the privilege, you don’t have to.

There’s a huge number of garden bloggers out there who, like me, do it all for free (sad bastards) and will always try to help anyone who asks… gratis. Check out my blogroll to find them.

We do it for love, laughs and a genuine desire to help (plus a bit of boasting and vainglory, on my part, when something goes right). So take advantage.

Just one small cost: You sometimes have to read a lot of shit about midget sex.