"Help us grow this site"?

I've never liked the use of "to grow [x]" to mean "to make [x] bigger", rather than in the agricultural sense.

Am I justified in this at all?

(If so, can we make the SE team reword our social media banner?)

I don't see any problem with using grow as transitive verb for things not related to agriculture.

Here is the definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary for grow as transitive verb:

1

a : to cause to grow

b :to let grow on the body

2 : to promote the development of start a business and grow it successfully — J. L. Deckter

The second definition is the one being used on the banner.

As a young editor (long ago), I was taught to use "grow" only in reference to plants, and that companies "build" a business. Somewhere in the past 30 years, businesses started to use the word "grow" to refer to their company. It really does grate on my ears. I know it's common usage now, but I still consider it marketing jargon and I always change it when editing.

Just my .02 on this.

I think it's fair to say that most people outside the business community rarely use grow as a transitive verb, unless they're talking about plants. I'm not generally impressed by business jargon. I think it tends to be purposefully vague, and to replace perfectly effective existing phrases without cause. The use of grow is a perfect example, since you could almost always just say expand or increase instead.

I don't think this is a matter of agriculture so much as organics. That is, the traditionally preferred use of "grow" is intransitive, unless what's growing does so from its own (natural) power. So, hair can grow, and crystals can grow, and tomatoes can grow, but economies can't grow, since human agency is needed to make them larger or stronger or whatever.

Fie upon you, Bill Clinton! This is not a Southern thing, since nobody I know in the South would ever "grow" a business. It's a matter of style, grace, and taste, which is of course how all grammar is ultimately determined. As my dear college professor said to me, "I don't think it's incorrect, it's just vulgar."

Raymond Chandler to new editor of his novel when they "corrected" his prose: "If I want to goddam well split an infinitive, I intend to." (or something like that)