How do I start a blog?

[Jobi1canobi]

Hi all,

I'm hoping to get an allotment soon and merge the Square Foot Gardening Method with Moon Gardening.

I'd like to start writing a blog so that those who are interested can check my progress and use me as a benchmark...trouble is, I'm afraid I don't know where to start. Can anyone advise on good 'hosts' that they'd recommend (I don't even know if thats the right terminology! )

Can anyone help with any other information that they feel would be useful to me?

Thanks in advance,

Jobi1

[Bonniegirl]

I use Blogger, very easy to use.

Here's mine:

http://jsmwebber.blogspot.com/

You can choose different layouts and backgrounds etc. It's fairly easy to insert photos directly from your computer as well. But I find that I need to cut and repaste to where want it in the text.

But yeah if I can figure it out anyone can

Have fun

[mybarnconversion]

Use blogger as above, or wordpress http://wordpress.com/

I'd suggest you sign up to those and play around, see how you get on.

[the.fee.fairy]

i use blogger too - www.thefeefairy.blogspot.com

Or Livejournal - www.livejournal.com

I find LJ easier to use. There are gardening and allotment communities that you can join too to meet like-minded people. I've got a gardening blog on there - www.livejournal.com/fee_flower

haven't updated it lately. Might go do that now...

[Karen_D]

I prefer livejournal. Like Fee I find it easy to use and the communities and having a "friends list" of people with similar interests is good. There are also some privacy options such as making posts only your friends can see (if you wanted to swap seeds, for example).

As has been suggested, you can sign up to Livejournal and other blog providers for free so why not try a few and see which one you like the best. Most have templates and easy highlight and click options for adding links or inserting pictures, so you don't need to know html.

My LJ is http://huwyf.livejournal.com

Wassail

Karen

[Thurston Garden]

I use wordpress but found that the web-based writing tools were particularly slow. When I switched from Explorer to Firefox as a browser, I installed the Scribefire plug-in which makes writing posts quick and easy. Not sure if it works on other blog sites though.

[Des]

Being a techie spod I already had my own domain so it made sense for me to set up a blog on my existing webspace. I found Wordpress to be the best for that; easy to set up and straightforward to use, but the self-hosted blog isn't a solution I'd recommend to someone who isn't reasonably au fait with keeping a website.

While you're learning the ropes, it's far easier to sign up with somewhere like Wordpress.com or Blogger.com - as to which of the two you choose, that's up to you. I like Wordpress, but I've never tried Blogger so I can't compare the two. I'd say if there's a chance you're ever going to want to host your own site and blog and you're thinking of using Wordpress for that then it would make sense to use their hosted blog since it's likely to be easier to import the data across when you come to move. If you have no such plans, then I'd recommend you play about with both and decide for yourself.

That's a hell of a long winded way to say "I dunno", isn't it?

Edited to add: By the way, I for one would be fascinated to see your blog. I've never heard of the methods you're planning to use, but they sound fascinating and it's always exciting to see new stuff. Is the "moon" method related in any way to biodynamics? I knew a farmer in Germany who swore by biodynamic methods, oh, sixteen years ago and the moon thing rings a bell...