Digital Gardening

Chezka Quinola, Krish Yendluri, DJ Battle

December 1, 2025

Digital Gardening

Introduction

  • A Next.js site that curates evolving “digital gardens,” displaying interlinked MDX-based notes.

  • Uses next-mdx-remote to render MDX, with Tailwind CSS for styling and a layout wrapper.

  • Includes key views: homepage highlighting gardens and tools, a directory of all gardens, and dynamic slug pages for individual entries.

Origins and Context

  • Rooted in digital gardening concepts from Mike Caulfield, later expanded by Tom Critchlow, Joel Hooks, and Maggie Appleton.

  • Inherits practices from wikis, Zettelkasten, and knowledge-graph systems, emphasizing non-linear, incremental publishing.

  • Technically grounded in the MDX + static-site ecosystem (Next.js, Gatsby, Jekyll) and supports bidirectional linking.

  • Designed to showcase notable digital gardens, tools, and the philosophies behind networked note-taking.

  • Acts as a starter kit for writers, researchers, and developers building evolving, public knowledge bases.

  • README.md serves as a theory-and-tools hub, providing examples and foundations for new garden structures.

  • Future-facing stack prepared for enhancements like Algolia Search (via build-search.js), expanded content, and richer metadata.

Core Principle: Ever Evolving Content

Think of your ideas like plants that never stop growing. You can water them later, trim them, or let them bloom into something totally new. A note you write today might look completely different next month, and that is part of the fun.

Example:

# idea_seed.py
note = "I want to learn creative coding."
updates = ["Added links", "Tried a p5.js sketch", "Expanded definition"]

for update in updates:
    print(f"Growing note: {update}")

Core Principle: Networked Structure

Instead of one long path, a garden branches out in all directions. Notes connect to other notes so ideas can cross pollinate. Readers can hop from concept to concept like moving between garden beds.

Example link map:

graph = {
    "Creative Coding": ["Generative Art", "p5.js Experiments"],
    "Generative Art": ["Randomness"],
}

for node, links in graph.items():
    print(f"{node} -> {', '.join(links)}")

Core Principle: Atomic Notes

Each note is a tiny tile in a larger mosaic. Small notes are easier to write and update, and they can snap together like Lego bricks to form big ideas.

Example atomic note:

atomic_note = {
    "title": "What Is a Fractal?",
    "definition": "A shape made of smaller copies of itself, often used in generative art."
}

print(atomic_note["title"], ":", atomic_note["definition"])

Core Principle: Transparency and Work in Progress

Digital gardens celebrate messy drafts. You can show your thinking as it unfolds, not just the polished final version. Readers get to see the real process behind your ideas.

Example WIP tag:

note_status = "🌱 Growing"
draft_content = ["intro written", "needs sketches", "needs examples"]

print("Status:", note_status)
print("To do:", draft_content)

Core Principle: Flexible Navigation

There is no single correct path through your garden. People can explore by tags, maps, links, or even graphs. It feels more like wandering than scrolling.

Example navigation block:

nav = ["Design Principles", "Visual Experiments", "Tools I Use"]

for item in nav:
    print("Explore:", item)

Why Digital Gardening Matters

  • Share your ideas as they grow, not just when they’re “perfect”
  • Connect your thoughts together like a web, not a timeline
  • Learn and share at the same time
  • Build your own personal Wikipedia

Anatomy of a Digital Garden

  • A collection of notes that link to each other
  • Some notes are new ideas, others are fully developed
  • Pages grow and change over time
  • Easy to jump between related topics

Tools and How to Build One

  • Use note apps like Obsidian or Notion
  • Publish with simple tools like Quartz
  • Start with just text files and links
  • Add fancy features later, if you want

Challenges

  • It feels weird to share unfinished ideas
  • Setting up the tech can be tricky
  • Hard to stay consistent with updates
  • Easy to spend more time organizing than writing

Who Benefits

  • Students organizing their learning
  • Writers working through ideas
  • Anyone who wants to share what they’re learning
  • People tired of traditional blogs

Conclusion

  • Digital gardens change how we share knowledge online
  • They value growth and connections over perfection
  • Start small, tend regularly, and let your garden evolve
  • Your messy, growing garden is better than a perfect blog that never starts