A Few Questions for You
Our First Reader Poll
Hello, Classical Roots Family!
This little newsletter is about to break a small milestone—nearly 100 of you have subscribed. The number is so modest that I’m almost embarrassed to celebrate. And yet, this is also a community of people I have come to value intensely. You all are interested in embodied experiences, in fresh approaches to education, in plants, in food, and in improving yourselves. A quick scroll through the news can leave me discouraged, but your comments and enthusiasm are a source of life and revival.
It’s therefore the growing season for this program, in both the physical garden and the digital world. In June, July, and August, I’ll be spending time here on campus while most of the faculty is away, watering plants, trimming the orchard trees, working with student leaders, and coordinating volunteers. But it’s also a season in which I’m considering the future of this publication. As I mentioned in my recent post about the new referral rewards (which you should take advantage of, by the way) I hope to establish a more regular writing rhythm in the coming months, so that the kind of content you’ve been seeing comes out in a more predictable pattern. It would help me enormously to know which sorts of content resonate the most with you as I hash out those plans.
But I’m also hoping to add some new types of content. I’ve considered starting every month with a “Garden Advice” post, where I talk about the best and most urgent gardening tasks you’ll want to accomplish during that particular month in this part of the world. Alternatively, or perhaps additionally, I’ve toyed around with using some of Substack’s features to create a monthly Q&A post, where subscribers can ask me questions about gardens, education, writing, or life in general and get personalized answers. I’ve also wondered whether some of you would enjoy it if I made use of the more “social media-like” features of Substack such as Notes and Chats, where I could interact with you more directly or share small videos about how to prune roses, get suckers off of tomatoes, or kill my nemesis the Squash Vine Borer Beetle with ashes (it’s actually a real thing).
To that end, I’m including two polls here—the first in this newsletter’s history. In the first poll, you can tell me which sorts of posts you’ve most enjoyed, whether it be my gardening guides, student news, or philosophy-focused writing. In the second, you can tell me what new kinds of content you’d be most excited to see. No matter what I’m writing, you can expect that it will be opinionated, idealistic, and strange. Those features are intrinsic to Classical Roots and won’t change!
Your feedback here will help shape the future of this newsletter and make me better at what I do. Thank you in advance. And if I missed anything or you’d like to explain your vote a little more, you can and should leave me a note in the comments
Like what you’re reading here? Help grow our family of gardeners, educators, and enthusiasts by referring a friend and you can earn rewards, including PDF guides to program development, access to my top gardening tips, and more:
