Does blogging make you a better gardener?

I was being a bit reflective today - (it is my birthday and that tends to happen as I think of myself getting yet another year older). I live in a very remote area, and very few people other than the family actually ever see my garden.
The grands love to run around and play and I have to bite my tongue when they pick pretty flowers to bring me.  I do want them to grow up enjoying nature, and knowing where their veggies come from, and enjoy the taste of a sun warmed tomato straight from the bush. I don't want them to think the garden is un-touchable.  I think it is working - my 4yr old grandson loves to garden.

Hence the little friends that share my garden with me...






With blogging though, I bring hundreds of people into my garden - an open garden every day....  I do think that has made me a better gardener.
 I think "oh my angel wing begonias are looking just as pretty as Bernie's"  I love how she has them hanging all in a row!

An orchid flowers and I just know that Desiree will post a lovely comment about it, even though she has a greenhouse full of orchids that seem to flower all year, while mine have a mind of their own.

I start to clean the mildew and moss off the pavers in my path and think of Missy running through the path in "her" garden chasing lizards.  For sure she would slip and slide on these!

I send out cosmos seeds and then see their flowers popping up in everyone's blog - I did warn everyone they could be a little weedy!  They have taken off on the side of the pool fence and formed a cheery border.

Now I have started joining in a few things which keep me accountable and on a bit of a blogging schedule one is the Urban farm handbook challenge that you can read more about here .  I won a pair of gardening gloves in the first month which was rather nice....  Last month we were building up the soil and this month making cheese. I have wanted to make cheese for so long, and this just gave me that extra shove.

Christine from slow living essentials has put out another challenge slow-living-month-by-month- and I have been enjoying doing this.
On the 5th of the month I post my harvest photos and link to garden bloggers harvest day
Then of course on the 15th I am linking to garden bloggers bloom day and then pretty soon after that to follow up foliage.
Suddenly I have a full blogging schedule....Oh dear, am I setting myself up for failure?   I think not - bloggers are very generous and don't come after you with a whip if you don't make the meet up, and I am finding it quite fun to have a few themes, memes or whatever you want to call them.
My first adventure into blogging began when I joined Kitchen Gardeners International, and suddenly there were all these gardeners willing to share their wealth of knowledge.  I posted a few photos and discovered that one could do the same thing on a thing called a blog.  I stumbled around learning how to post photos and follow other bloggers.
What a wealth of information I found out there and such great support cheering me on to become a better gardener, with their advice and support.
 Thank you everyone!
Does anyone else want to share how they started blogging?