Garden diaries put into writing your previous seasons’ activities. Gardeners who can’t quite remember what was good and what was not so good about last year, might want to keep track of their garden this year. Some of us have kept a journal for many years; newbie gardeners might just be starting. It sure helps when ordering seed and planting schemes.
Diaries or journals can be kept on calendars or spiral notebooks or even special garden books; three-ring binders let the gardener insert pages when an entry was missed.
How many “notes to self” get lost? Journals help with all the details of a growing season, like when were the seedlings started, when were they moved into the garden. How was the ground prepared—what amendments were added and where were they purchased. So many times we think we’ll surely remember those details, but somehow they get lost in the bustle of the season—but then don’t.
Journals are most helpful when planning each year’s garden design, knowing which vegetables were planted where, so that crops can be rotated.
Here are a few suggestions on what to keep in a journal:
• Date of first and last freeze
• Spent seed packets
• Plant tags of plants purchased and placed in the garden
• Packaging from bulbs
• Date spring bulbs emerged
• Photos of garden from various angles at different times of the year
• Date of first bloom of fruit trees
• Date of first harvest of fruit
• Date of tilling for each garden
• Pests and how they were managed
• Planting strategies for different crops
• Weather – temperature extremes, rainfall, snowfall
• Successes planting new varieties
• Not-so-successful new additions to the garden
• Cut-out descriptions of new varieties from catalogs
• Sources of compost, products used in the garden
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