I am definitely looking forward to the rural living section, whether it is the garden section re-titled, or however works best for you, @Ken Anderson . I think it is something that is timely right now, more so because of the increasing inflation in this country, and the possible threats of war and loss of crops this fall. More and more people are trying to at least stock up on some extra foods, and I think that we would have more input (and maybe more new people who are interested in prepping), once you have set up the forum section for that. I know that you are always busy, so if I can be of any help, please let me know, and I will do my part.
I'm sorry for the delay. I like the idea and, as has been suggested privately, I'm thinking of making it a category of its own. There are some things to work out, however. I am hesitant to have two gardening sections, one for urban or suburban gardening and another for rural gardening because this could become a PITA when it comes to separating posts into one or the other. The other, of course, would be deciding on the topics. Yes, I know that I could look at some other rural living forums but I try not to do that because it's too easy to copy what someone else is doing, and I don't like to do that.
You had mentioned earlier in this thread that you could make the defining name for this section to be rural living, and then gardening (of any kind ) would simply be a sub forum underneath, like you have done with other main forum areas (putting viruses under health, etc). Once you set the main name to Rural life (or whatever similar name you decide on) then we can move the threads from other areas into that section, and the sub-forum of gardens can just have the related gardening topics, same as before. I can start going through some of the threads that will fit into this category, because we have all kinds of threads that belong there, from tractors to farms and ranches.
What I'm thinking is that, since we have a gardening section, any topic related to gardening would be appropriate there, whether it's in the Rural Living category or where it is now. Otherwise, it could easily become either redundant or unmanageable. If a category of its own, I'd want at least four sub-categories.
I was considering a consulting job after retirement, but when I fell 6 days after retiring and all the problems that caused, I had to pass the idea by.
If I moved the gardening forum from the Getting it Done category to the new category, I'd need to replace it with something. Otherwise, the forum will become asymmetrical and it might fall over and break.
I thought that "Rural Lifestyles" was gonna occupy that spot, and the Gardening stuff would then get moved under it. Wasn't that the plan to maintain symmetry?
Maybe moving the gardening as a sub forum to the new Rural Lifestyles and replacing it with a new sub forum. called "Landscaping" might work. The sub forums in the new Rural forum might be "Crops and Gardens," "Raising Farm Animals," "Homestead Energy," "Homestead buildings," Country Entertainment," and "Tools." 1. Crops --- would be for gardening, canning, drying, composting, and anything related to growing food whether in the city or in the remote mountains. 2. Animals -- would be for talk about raising horses, cows, goats, sheep, hogs, chickens, etc. 3. Energy -- would be for home solar, water wheels, developing springs, making candles, windmills, making your own fuel, etc. It would differ from our other board about energy as this one would address home systems only and not talk about big solar farms or electric cars in downtown LA. 4. Buildings -- would address building, maintaining, and converting, houses for efficient country living as well as barns, corrals, or even outhouses. Log cabins, board and bat, buffalo hide tepee, yak hide yurt, or adobe. 5. Entertainment -- would address all forms of rural home entertainment from making instruments, to talk about radio communications, cell service in remote areas, satellite internet, community potlucks, and even card playing. Maybe even steer riding on the homestead. Maybe quilting or spinning wool. 6. Tools -- would be for anything from hand tools, tractors, to horse-drawn plows. anything past or present that makes rural living easier. These are just some ideas. It might be easier to add the 5 new sub-forums to the "Getting it Done" forum, but my idea is the rural Living main forum might bring in new seniors, searching the internet, interested in surviving these uncertain times. I know many seniors dream of rural living in their older years but reading tips and experiences from younger folks may not apply.
I don't really care one way or another, except I don't believe gardening is specific to rural living. Also, the more sub-forums, the more you're going to see posts in "Not Sure Where It Goes." Seems like the more complicated the forum structure, the less people are going to want to search around for where to put stuff.