Starting a garden journal

[angrboda]

The below is a crosspost from my own dw. Has anybody else experimented with a garden journal? What sort of stuff did you write in it?

For Christmas Husband gave me a nice Critical Role notebook as 'something to go with', so I have been vaguely pondering what to use it for. I have now decided to have a go at making it a garden journal.

I have no idea how one does that. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm basically just putting stuff in there and seeing where it goes. I don't even know how long I'll be able to keep it up,* but we're having a go anyway. So far I've put in a list of what's in the different beds off the top of my head, I've put a todo list of tasks I'd like to get done during the spring (lol!),** and I've put in a number of ideas for how I would like to do the terrace pots and a list of other plants I might like to try and plant.

It occurs to me that it might also come in handy when we go to the garden center because I can take it with me and look up what I was considering, which feels far more attractive than a note on my phone, and I could potentially also put in things that I saw at the garden center that might be interesting later on, especially if I remember to also bring a pencil.***

This decision coincides, or is probably partially born from, the effort Husband is currently making to get through a vast stack of garden magazines that have piled up. We tried putting them in a specific place, so that they weren't always lying around on the dining table. This worked splendidly for me because it was more tidy, and not at all for him because the magazines tended to just accumulate and he'd never actually get around to looking in them. So now the magazine storage situation is a bit unclear. Anyway, he's making his way through them, tearing out the pages he wants a closer look at, and I got trough after him and do the same.

On one page, I was mainly interested in a small bit in the bottom third, so in a fit of inspiration I cut it out and glued it into my journal. I had a bit of leftover hobby glue that was still good, so I used that. I discovered that the paper is really too thin for this to be an ideal solution, but on the other hand, I'm kind of enjoying the tactile way the paper has gone a bit crinkly now where it has dried. Might acquire more unsuitable glue and do it again.

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*But it is giving me some opportunity to use highlighters. I have far too many highlighters. But they come in so many colours, and you obviously have to have one in each colour. I mean, obviously!
**If I do a third of them, I'll call it a success.
***Not a pen. A pencil. And definitely not a mechanical one. An old fashioned one that you have to sharpen. I've been favouring them for years now. I think it has something to do how it feels to write with it.

Comments

[rebeccmeister]

I mostly just write blog entries in my DW blog and tag them "gardening," but I could definitely see some utility to a journal of the sort you're starting. Useful for remembering what's planted where and how it fared! And definitely fun to be able to be free-form about it.

My guess would be that over time you'll figure out what parts you want to maintain, but sometimes it just takes time to sort that out.

[angrboda]

I'm also enjoying just the act of writing things down on actual paper. There's definitely a bit of a creative feeling to it. :)

I hope it can help me keep track of stuff like varieties, because I haven't really been paying attention to that before.

[antisoppist]

I was thinking I need a garden journal where I write what bulbs I put where so I don't accidentally dig them up while they still aren't doing anything. And what I planted in each pot on the patio. I suppose there I could stick labels on the pots.

And when I pruned things and what I did and what happened. More of a record for the following year.

[winterfirelight]

I started a spreadsheet a few years back that's turned into a useful journal of sorts. Initially I meant to use it just to keep track of seeds I'd accumulated, to sort them between ones I'd actually like to use and which to give away, but it's turned into a much broader log of the garden in general. What I've planted, when and where, how they've done, notes I want to keep for next year... I just added a column for when to harvest different things, since I grow mostly medicinal plants and they've all got different kinds of schedules for peak harvest. My hope is to build out a sort of month-by-month calendar over time that I can refer to each year based on my specific plants and climate, but we'll see how it goes!

[low_delta]

You're doing it right. You write down anything you think of that you want to write down. Over time, you'll think of some new kinds of things you want to keep track of, or decide you don't need to keep some of the things you're writing now.

In mine, I make note of weather trends, what's blooming or done blooming, what I've recently planted or ordered, what has died, projects, trouble with pests, my houseplants, vegetable harvests, whatever work I happened to do out there, etc. I also include photos, but that's not as easy for a paper journal. :-)

Mine is on LiveJournal: https://freekeesgarden.livejournal.com

[spiralicious]

When I was keeping a gardening journal, I tracked what was in what container and it's care & changes to the plant I needed to know. And I had a section of ideas I wanted to try. Oh, and a sunlight map of my garden space.