What is Growing Real Food?
Over the last few weeks I have been posting a lot of great articles to a new site called Growing Real Food. Today I want to tell you a little bit about this site and why I have created it.
Growing Real Food is a place where I can take a much more detailed approach to gardening. I wanted an area were I could teach others how to grow real food in an easy step by step approach.
Lets face it. Gardening can be super overwhelming! You don’t have to be a new gardener to be overwhelmed. Every growing season throws you new challenges and that is what makes gardening so challenging yet so enjoyable.
Growing Real Food is a place where I share an easy step by step approach to gardening. I wanted a place that showcases beautiful pictures and clearly gives many different visuals so that you truly understand what is going on in your garden.
Why I Created Growing Real Food
If you have noticed I have an organic gardening section on Whole Lifestyle Nutrition. So why create this whole new site? I have several reasons.
When doing research for gardening post, I found some great sites but they were very hard to read and were loaded with text and I am not a text person…I am such a visual person!
I wanted a website that I could goto and see beautiful pictures that explained everything in a quick and easy format so that I could quickly read the post and grab the information.
Did you know that most people do not read on the web…they scan! I wanted a site that you could easily scan and still have access to great information if you wanted a more in depth view.
Here is a post I did last week that showcases how quickly you can get the information you are looking for. In this post I am showing you how to self pollinate a squash flower to produce more squash. Notice how easy it is to scan the post and get all the information that you need from only looking at the pictures.
Building My Own Website
Another reason why I wanted to create Growing Real Food is that I really wanted to experience building my very own website from the ground up!
Three years ago I hired a graphic designer and website developer to develop Whole Lifestyle Nutrition. I was clueless to the blogging world and had no idea where to even start…so I hired someone.
Hiring someone to develop a website can be very expensive. Whole Lifestyle Nutrition cost me over $2,000 just to put up, and that does not include the operating expenses that it cost me to keep it up and running.
I knew there had to be a more effective way to build your own site and I was bound and determined to figure it out. Next week I will be diving into how I built Growing Real Food from the ground up.
Whole Lifestyle Nutrition has become a full business for me and my team and I am so excited to be able to work out of my home during the day and also care for my 3 young girls.
If you are looking to create an income for yourself, be sure to tune in next week to learn how to build your own site for as little as $100.
A Tour of Growing Real Food
As I mentioned above, I wanted to create a site that was loaded with visual content and beautiful easy to follow pictures. Growing Real Food should be easy to navigate around and focuses on taking a step by step approach to growing real food.
Take a look at the very top picture. That is our homepage. I wanted a very clean look so that my pictures pop and I also wanted a white background. Everything looks better on white don’t you think?
I wanted to keep with the theme of Whole Lifestyle Nutrition, so I matched the logo to be very similar to Whole Lifestyle Nutrition. These two sites will work very closely together and I will be sharing information from both sites.
A Carousel Feature
Below the logo (see picture below) is what we call a carousel. Here you can use the arrow on either end to quickly scan our latest post.
If you see something you like, hover over it and the title will come up and you can click on it and be taken to that post. How cool is that?
(Note: you actually need to click over to Growing Real Food to see this feature in action, the picture below is just a snap shot).
Again, I have noted how important it is to me to take a step by step approach to growing real food. Notice the navigation bar.
From the left to the right we go from planning phase all the way to harvesting and then what do you do after harvesting…you need gardening recipes right?
Well we have a great section for that too. This section will only have recipes that focuses on using the ingredients harvested from the garden.
Garden By Seasons
I also wanted to include some easy ways for you to just dive into gardening no matter which season it was. You can search our site by season and all the information will be there for you.
Are you starting out in the summer? Click on summer gardening and all the information that you need will be there.
Not Just For Beginners, Advanced Topics Too
We wanted this to be a site that everyone could enjoy. Are you a seasoned gardener or are you new to gardening and just starting out. We have something for everyone.
Our advanced gardening section will focus on starting seeds indoors, greenhouses, vertical growing, composting and using rain barrels. We will add more to this area as we grow.
Individual Posts
Each individual post will have plenty of eye catching pictures and I will really put a focus on creating a post that is super easy to read and easy to understand.
I am always growing and could always use your feedback so feel free to reach out to me at anytime by clicking on the contact us button to share your feedback.
Recipes Page
As I mentioned above, I wanted to have a place that focused on what to do after you harvest your produce. Our recipe page is a place where you can discover delicious recipes to use up your produce that you have just harvested!
Join The Conversation
We know you might have questions and I encourage you to ask away!! Each year your gardening season will change. Believe me when I say no two gardening seasons are alike!
In our comment section, I will do my best to answer any questions that you might have. This also gives us a chance to get to know one another. 🙂
Resource Page
There are so many different things to buy when gardening. Our resource page is a place to share my favorite gardening items.
Share Your Thoughts
Hey guys, as you know we’re new at Growing Real Food! For all of the new post coming out be sure to like us on our Facebook page! Feel free to likes us on all of our other social channels and follow us through the gardening season. Thanks for taking the time to learn about my new website and for stopping by! 🙂
(Click on icons to goto social media channel).
If you notice my Pinterest, Instagram and Youtube are “Halle Cottis”, Yep that’s me! I also share Whole Lifestyle Nutrition & Growing Real Food for my Youtube Channel, Pinterest and Instagram accounts.
Both sites have the same concepts of cooking, eating and growing real food, but Growing Real Food really focuses on simple techniques to show you how to easily grow real food.
So you tell me, what do you think of my new website? Would you ever consider starting your own website? If yes, what would your website be about?
Hello there! I know this is kinda off topic however I’d figured I’d
ask. Would you be interested in trading links or maybe guest authoring a blog
article or vice-versa? My website goes over a lot of the same
subjects as yours and I believe we could greatly benefit from each
other. If you are interested feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
I look forward to hearing from you! Awesome blog by the way!