The Algorithm Ate My Tomatoes: What June Harvests Taught Me About Content Distribution

My partner Tony walked into the kitchen yesterday holding a colander overflowing with Cherokee Purples and Brandywines. "We have a problem," he said. The tomato plants had done exactly what we wanted them to do. We just hadn't planned for what happens after success.

This is the week every backyard gardener in the Northern Hemisphere faces the same abundance crisis. Search trends for "what to do with too many tomatoes" spike every June like clockwork. Meanwhile, half the posts I'm seeing from thoughtful creators on LinkedIn are getting buried under algorithm shifts that favor... well, whatever the opposite of a home-grown tomato is.

The connection isn't obvious until you've been on both sides of a distribution problem. When you grow something real, whether it's Cherokee Purples or a piece of writing that took you three weeks to refine, you assume the hard part is over. You made the thing. But making it and getting it to the people who need it are completely different challenges.

I spent twenty years in sales enablement before shifting to literary operations. The pattern holds across industries. You can build the best product demo, the most useful documentation, or the most helpful children's book about processing grief (like my current project, The Wiggles, the Woofs, and the Why), but if your distribution strategy is "post and hope," you're counting on an algorithm that doesn't care about your tomatoes.

Here's what actually works, whether you're a gardener with a harvest problem or a creator trying to reach parents searching for social-emotional learning resources: diversification and direct relationships. Tony and I don't just plant tomatoes and wait. We have a preservation plan, neighbor relationships, and a standing arrangement with TechCommuters' community garden network. Same principle applies to content. One platform, one algorithm change, and your reach disappears.

The practical solution isn't complicated. It's just unfashionable. Email lists. RSS feeds. Direct messages to people who've expressed interest. Cross-posting to platforms with different discovery mechanisms like Dev.to, Hashnode, or Medium. Building on your own domain. The same reason we make tomato sauce, salsa, and sun-dried preserves is the same reason I publish the same core message across multiple channels. Different formats, different platforms, different timelines for when someone needs what you made.

Your harvest will rot if you only have one basket.