I think I know now why trees lose their leaves.  Oh sure, those scientific types might say it has something to do with leaf senescence and days getting shorter, but I know deep down inside that the REAL reason trees lose their leaves is because they are tired.

All summer long, its work, work, work.  Providing shade for this person, looking pretty for that person.  And heaven forbid that you be a fruit tree and be expected to provide fruit on top of it all.  I mean really, when does a tree get a break?  So those deciduous trees, you know the ones that have figured out that all work and no sleep creates a prickly personality (which explains a lot about many evergreens), take a break and rest.

What I am saying here is that I am going to take a page from their book.  I love gardening.  I now work, play, eat, sleep gardening.  Which is great.  Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t envy you gardeners that have to go to a real job every day (Sure, I get paid, but I still have a hard time believing that it is a real job). But I am a bit weary. My garden needs a rest and I need to roll it back a bit.

Last year this happened too, but I worried some of you when I just stopped.  So this is my notice.  This is my first frost to you.  I will be back – I promise.  I am planted in fertile soil after all and tended to by those who love me with tender, loving care.   I might even pop my head up mid-winter if something gardening related peaks my interest.  But until then, I hope you and your gardens rest well too.

Like the Grass Couch. I have had a spot picked out for years now, a key focal point in my back yard, in fact. Every year, I vow that I will get too it. But by the time the beds are all cleaned up and the veggie garden is all planted, well, I just want to take a break. Then it is too hot. Then it is too cold. Then, just like the year before a year has gone by with no very hip grass couch appearing in my yard.

Of course there is a never ending line of flower beds that I would love to put in. I do make progress every year in my eventual goal (and my husband’s hope) that I turn every bit of lawn into a flower bed but it will be a long, long process.

And if it is not time standing in my way, it is money. One of these days I will win a small lottery (all I need is a small lottery, say a million or so, it is not too much to ask) and I will build a greenhouse in the back yard.

Almost every gardener I know has this problem. Time and money are like evil worms that work against the fruits of our labors. Unfortunately, I have no magic cure for the issue of time. But, for one lucky person out there, I can help out with the money part. Home Depot has generously offered to give one of my readers a $100 gift card to help them start (or finish) their gardening project. You just need to tell me what that gardening project is. I will choose 5 and post those projects on my blog and you all will be able to vote for the one that wins.

Click here to enter and tell me what Gardening Project you would like to complete!

Oh, sorry, had an Animaniacs moment there.

So maybe we don’t dream of taking over the world, but we do dream of taking over the earth, at least the earth contained in our garden. How do I know this (other than driving impulses that direct me now)? The Great Google told me of course. Google Trends tells us all.

What!?!? You have never heard of Google Trends? Oh yeah, I forget that the rest of the world is not internet addicts. But still, Google Trends can be fun for your average web surfer for at least a few minutes.

So let’s start with this little world, the world of garden blogging. So what do we find out from Google Trends about garden blogs? Apparently, they are much more popular in Singapore and Malaysia than here in the US. We Yanks did not really discover garden blogs until 2007. Prior to that, not enough people searched for a garden blog to even register to Google.

Now the term “gardening” shows us some really interesting things. Mainly that once the blush of Christmaka has worn off, we gardeners turn into gardening fiends and we don’t slow down until April. This reveals what we already know. We suffer from cabin fever on cocaine and we turn to the internet for our winter fix. But once the sun shines and sprouts burst, we abandon our web dealers and go for the real thing. If you remember my article on seed catalogs, this trend plays into the reason why you start getting seed catalogs in December. The seed selling world just wants to whip you up into a fine frenzy so they can make more money.

But Hanna, you say, the trend of “gardening” is going down. Obviously this proves what we always said about the decline of gardening. Whose this “we”, kimosabi?

Before you write long diatribes on the end of gardening as we know it, let me show you a few other trends:

• Vegetable Gardening
• Grow Tomatoes
• Grow Basil

There is not necessarily having less gardening, but rather we have gotten more sophisticated in how we search.

An interesting side bar is that herbs get a double spike rather than the single spring spike of search traffic. It seems that the one thing people feel they can’t live without from their garden are those tasty tidbits. When faced with the prospect of having to take a second mortgage on their house so that they can enjoy fresh herbs, it seems that they turn the internet to see how they can stave off this harrowing prospect.

So here we stand on the edge of the gardening season for a new era. The Internet Gardening Season. Gather your catalogs close and read up on all you want to do while you wait for the sun to return.

So, the answer to the money questions is yes and about $5 a day (all types of advertising I do included). $5 is not a ton of money, but it pays the hosting bills and leaves enough left over to buy a few more plants, which is really the only reason I see for profiting from garden blogging anyway.

In the blogging world, there are two camps when it comes to advertising. There are those who believe that the web should be free and pure and unsullied by material trappings (kind of like Buddhist monks, except without the orange robes and chanting) and then there are people who need to pay bills and understand that the saying says “the LOVE of money is the root of all evil.” Money itself is just how we keep the hosting and plant bills paid.

When it comes to making money from a gardening blog, you have a few options. And, for the record, these are listed in the order of how much of a percentage of the profit they make from this website.

Private advertising - I get approached a lot for private advertising. I consider this to be anything from receiving free product to (honestly) review to a one on one deal to add a small blurb to a partcular page. Garden bloggers probably miss out on this income more than any other simply because their site lacks a Contact Form. If people can’t contact you, they can’t offer to give you money or free things.

AdSense - AdSense is a nifty little program from Google that allows you to add a little bit of code to the pages of your site and they will display ads that are related to the topic of the page. You get paid a percentage of each click. Pretty darn handy for people who don’t want to fuss much.

I have one tip for AdSense. Less is more. I know from experience on this site that I make more money with less ads on the page than I did with more ads on the page. Just keep it in mind. And don’t cheat by clicking on your own ad. They can tell that you cheat.

Affiliate advertising - There are several programs on the web where you can sign your website up, pick a few ads and then you can add those ads to your site. If someone clicks on those ads and buys something, you get a commission on the sale.  Some of the bigger companies are Commision Junction, Performics, Amazon and LinkShare.

These are the primary ways I make money on this blog but there are other ways. I know many bloggers participate in the BlogHer advertising network, text-link-ads.com, paid blog posts and other types of advertising. If you see an unfamiliar type of advertising on another blogger’s website that you would like to try, ask them about it (provided they have a contact form).

Can you go overboard with advertising? Frankly, yes. You need to take a long hard look at why you want to make money on your gardening blog. Could I make more on this blog? Yes (and for the record I make much more than $5 a day on other websites I own). Can you make a living off of a blog? Yes, I know several people who do (though not in this industry). Do you want your blog to end up looking like the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile where it is apparent that the sole purpose of your blog is to be an advertisement to make money? That is a personal question.

You have to realize that the more advertising you have, the more people may be turned off.  You have to balance.

Me personally, This Garden Is Illegal is for my fun. Profit is an afterthought. If it pays for a few more plants without taking the fun out of writing, then I am all for it. But really, I would do this even if there were no money at all involved.

But, while there is loss, there is also growth. I get requests almost every day for people to get added to my blogroll and the Garden Blog Search. I would encourage anyone who has a gardening blog (even a semi-gardening blog) to let me know about it. I would love to add it to my blogroll and to the Search. No blog is too small or too new! We all have a garden that we should be sharing!