I created a Digital Garden

The concept of a Digital Garden has always been interesting to me and for a long time I have been thinking about creating one myself. Thus I decided to create one myself using Obsidian Publish, which can be visited at stephanlevin.garden.

‍

What is a Digital Garden?

‍

Maggie Appleton, a Designer and Anthropologist from London, is often quoted when talking about Digital Gardens, describing them as follows:

‍

A garden is a collection of evolving ideas that aren't strictly organised by their publication date. They're inherently exploratory – notes are linked through contextual associations. They aren't refined or complete - notes are published as half-finished thoughts that will grow and evolve over time. They're less rigid, less performative, and less perfect than the personal websites we're used to seeing.

~ Maggie Appleton, maggieappleton.com

‍

It can be seen as ones personal Wiki, with the design, format, structure and organisation of the content published being entirely in the hands of the owner of the garden - meaning there is no general template or blueprint that needs to be followed.

‍

The term 'garden' derives from the analogy of a thought being a seed, planted in the digital garden, growing and intertwining with its environment. In a way everything is somehow linked to each other, nothing is ever truly finished, but a constant work in progress. It is not meant to be perfect or performative such as traditional blogs in any way, but to grow and evolve with its creator as time passes.

‍

This form of shared note-taking can offer several benefits, such as:

• Personal Knowledge Management
  It helps in organising thoughts, notes, and resources in a structured manner.
  
  
• Incremental Growth
  Unlike traditional blogs, digital gardens are meant to be continuously updated and improved over time.
  
  
• Non-Linear Structure
  Information is often interconnected through links, allowing users to explore topics in a non-linear fashion. It also makes it easier to see relationships between different pieces of knowledge.
  
  
• Enhanced Creativity and Exploration
  Provides a space to explore ideas without the pressure of publishing polished, final content.
  
  
• Community and Collaboration
  Digital gardens can be shared publicly, allowing others to learn from and contribute to your knowledge. It can also encourages collaboration and sharing of resources within a community.
  
  
• Long-Term Value
  Digital gardens act as a living document that evolves with time, providing historical insight into how one’s thinking has evolved.
  
  

My Digital Garden

I have been familiar with the term 'Digital Garden' for a few years now, having first read about it when I discovered Obsidian, a free markdown note-taking app. As Obsidian is often referenced to be used for Digital Gardens, I got curious and started to look into some examples and articles about them.

‍

The most significant motivational push to create one was the sheer amount of projects I had started to work on, but had no chance to finish anytime soon the way I envisioned them, due to each project coming with its own website, design and the personal requirement to be a finished piece, and not a "still-work-in-progress" when released. As I learned about digital gardening, I thought why not create one myself and merge all these projects together with my personal notes into one website? And at last this is exactly what I did.

‍

My Digital Garden is a collection of every such project, my study notes and thoughts in form of essays and blog posts. Although in a less generally structured, periodic format than for example here on my Portfolio website.

‍

How to create a Digital Garden?

There are many tools/solutions out there that can be used to create a digital garden, including wiki software such as DokuWiki, content management systems such as Wordpress, static hosting services such as GitHub or note-taking apps such as Obsidian or Notion.

‍

For the creation of my digital garden I decided to go with Obsidian Publish, as I have already been an Obsidian user for years now, and thoroughly enjoy using it for managing anything written.

‍

You can find more information on my Obsidian Publish branch, where I documented most of the customisations I did to my page and also how to set up a custom domain, etc.

‍

Further Reading

Further articles focusing on Digital Gardens:

‍

• A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden by Magie Appleton
• Digital Gardens. Seriously? by Daniel Sieger
• Digital gardens let you cultivate your own little bit of the internet by Tanya Basu

‍