Twitterers in the garden

If you think I'm writing about birds again, you're mistaken. This one's actually about technology.

I've been keeping up with Twitter since it arrived online. Not enough to actually tweet myself, you understand.  I'm well aware that no one really cares that at the moment I'm editing a 2,000-word article that's supposed to be 1,000 words long. Or that currently I'm trying to track down photos of Parma violets.

When Twitter started, that's what it was all about -- people popping up on a map all over the world and giving pithy descriptions of their current activities. (Melbourne, Australia: "I just got up. It's sunny.")

It's really expanded since then. (And if you don't have a clue what I'm talking about, I'll let personal technology guru David Pogue explain in Twittering Tips for Beginners and a follow-up column, The Twitter Experiment.)

But I was fascinated to learn that there are numerous active garden Twitters. Kathy Purdy of Cold Climate Gardening easily found almost 40 top garden Twitterers.

I shouldn't have been surprised, of course. It's another way to communicate, which is good, and it's obvious that it can be fun. But I often wonder who has the time to do all that, both frequent tweeting and following favorite Twitterers.

Mostly, it makes me feel guilty. I think I must not manage my time well. These folks garden and blog and Twitter and make a living and still have a life. I guess I'm a little jealous, but probably I'm just not gregarious enough.

Do you Twitter? About what? And why?

(Note: We invite you to visit the main page of the Monitor’s gardening site , where you can find many articles, essays, and blog posts on various garden topics.)