Sources close to matters have confirmed the Daily Courier has killed the mountain gardeners weekly column after decades of local advice. Many of the columnist have been pressured to change where content is published and by who. Ken Lain, “I had a face-to-face meeting with the owner/manager of the newspaper. They insist their columnist only write for the Daily Courier and no one else. No writing for other magazines, journal, newsletters, online paper, or website could receive written content from their writer. To add insult to injury, the weekly garden column would be cut to only run 1-2 bits of garden advice per month as they decided . . . no guarantees. I was forced to decline their offer.”

Weekly garden advice will be published through LearnToGarden.org with features by Ken Lain, YouTube interviews, Podcast of, ‘The Mountain Gardener’ radio show, with even more all local tips, tricks and techniques for the garden.

“Social media has been HUGE in this effort.” There is more to come on this story, but talks are still in their preliminary stages with local garden reporters, other news agencies and radio groups. Since the column was cut on April 13th over 423 subscribers have ask for garden advice through LearnToGarden.org, with another 375 fans added to the Watters Facebook page. Ken, “A realistic goal for this free subscription base is 10,000 new gardeners, with 5000+ fans of our Facebook page by the end of May. With that many garden readers we could have more subscribers than the local newspaper.”

“It’s nice to know you have friends behind you when times get hard. I have to thank my fans for a meaningful letter writing campaign.” Ken, “Hundreds-upon-hundred of readers sent emails or called the editorial staff at the Courier asking for the continuation of the garden column, to no avail. Thank you for a gallant effort.”