Page Status: Work in Progress
Cleaned up and clarified certain sections, some are still unfinished
WUT
What is Digital Gardening?
Digital Gardening is about organizing your thoughts in your website / wiki / knowledge base, and sharing it with others. Compared to blogging, your published content is not sorted chronologically and does not have to be perfect. Instead, it is about publishing your thoughts bit by bit and learning in public.
The Garden Metaphor
The term "digital garden" uses the gardening metaphor intentionally. Unlike a blog (which is more like a stream of content flowing past), a garden is a place you tend over time:
- Seeds 🌱 — Early ideas, rough notes, initial thoughts that may grow into something more
- Budding 🌿 — Ideas that are taking shape but still need nurturing and development
- Evergreen 🌳 — Mature, well-developed content that continues to be relevant and is regularly maintained
This approach embraces the idea that knowledge is never truly "finished." Pages can be revisited, refined, and expanded as understanding deepens.
How It Differs From Traditional Blogging
| Aspect | Traditional Blog | Digital Garden |
|---|---|---|
| Organization | Chronological (newest first) | Topical, interconnected |
| Content State | Published = "done" | Always evolving |
| Pressure | Polished, complete posts | Work-in-progress welcome |
| Discovery | Timeline scrolling | Exploration and linking |
| Ownership | Time-stamped moments | Living knowledge base |
Why I Chose This Approach
For me, the digital garden philosophy aligns perfectly with how I actually learn and document things:
- No pressure for perfection — I can publish incomplete notes and come back to them later
- Organic growth — Topics naturally expand as I learn more
- Better for technical documentation — Technical knowledge evolves; a garden lets me update without creating new posts
- Personal reference — It serves as my own searchable knowledge base first, shared resource second
Learn More
If you want to read more about this topic, you should definitely check out Maggie Appleton's A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden. After reading her post, I realized that the concept of Digital Gardening fits my workflow for writing documentation, and was able to further improve my wiki.
Other excellent resources on digital gardening:
- Tom Critchlow's Digital Garden — A great example of a working garden
- Joel Hooks on Digital Gardens — Thoughts on learning in public
- The Garden and the Stream by Mike Caulfield — The essay that sparked the modern movement