What’s up with keeping a garden journal? Is it worth your time and effort? Absolutely!
Keeping a garden journal from year to year will prove to be an indispensable tool in your self-sustaining efforts. Despite my best efforts, I can’t remember how my garden performed each summer. Making decisions regarding rotation, placement, purchasing and introduction of new crops will be more educated when I keep records of my successes and failures of the previous years.
How you choose to keep a garden journal will largely depend upon your personality. There are many free garden plotting templates , more here, available on-line if you are into the computer. Purchasing an inexpensive paper notebook or journal is another option, this is what I do. Three-ring binders would work well, especially if you include pocketed pages so that you could save seed packets, photos, ads, etc. You could even make notes and assemble pictures that are kept in a photo box if you like, whatever it takes to insure your garden record happens.
What to keep in your garden journal?
* Products and prices
* Companies you preferred
* Tools that worked and didn’t work
* Seed packets, pressed blooms, dried leaves or other garden paraphernalia to jog your memory
* Dates you started your seeds
* Dates of planting
* Unusual weather patterns
* Seed germination times
* Placement of crops
* Overall observations of plants, blossoms, etc.
* Harvest totals
* Preservation totals
Photo credit
Do YOU keep a garden journal? How has it helped you? Do you feel motivated to start one?
PDF 
About kmorris
This is very helpful. I need to keep one for my (pitiful) garden. Then maybe it wouldn’t be so pitiful, lol. Seriously though, it does help very much. Thanks for the information.
Bobbi,
Sounds like you would benefit from a garden journal. From “pitiful” to “prosperous”!!!
I DO keep a gardening journal. Just a spiral notebook that is covered in dirt and looks like it’s been sprayed with the hose a bazillion times, but it suits my purpose. Don’t think I’d want to take the laptop down to the garden, so I’ll just stick with the notebook.
Carol,
As long as it serves the purpose, that’s all that matters. Thanks for commenting!
Great post, Kelly. I have a journal or two, but being consistant is an issue for me. However, I agree that using one that fits your personality is key and I need to do exactly that! If I did, then I’d keep at it more regularly.
Amy, I’m a notebook gal myself. I love my laptop but not for that, I need to “chicken scratch” on it and draw.
This is a great idea. I have been keeping a log of plant varieties, location in the garden, planting dates, daily hi/low temperatures (incl. unusual weather), performance and organic methods of IPM, but I hadn’t thought about putting it all together in one folder, with images and fun notes. That will certainly make it less ‘sterile”. Thanks.
Heidi,
That’s great that you’ve been keeping records, it should be easy (and quite possibly fun) to put it all together in one place.
This is inspiring. Heidi’s comment really got me thinking of looking at this type of journal as nature journaling which we were doing in our homeschool. I could set a good example for the kids. lol
Thanks for the inspiration, Kelly.
I have tried to keep a journal of different kinds, but I had a hard time being consistent. So now I keep garden notes on the family calendar. Sometimes I even highlight it with green. It’s easy to note frosts, harvests, etc. Though I would love to have a beautiful garden journal, and I may one day….until then I’ll keep using the calendar.
I have used the inside of seed packets and mapped the garden spots where they were planted. I don’t do seed costs since most of mine were other’s leftovers and would be throwaways… So wasteful!
I do keep receipts from bulbs and garden plants so if they die I could get replacements.
With getting seeds from the America the Beautiful Seed campaign, I refilled many holes within the my seed collection.
I’m a new subscriber to your site, and am enjoying exploring it. For my gardening journal, I use a spreadsheet to record info as I start my seeds inside, and have created a couple of templates for my various garden beds. I can move my plants around on paper while waiting for the official planting date. Once I move outside, I print out the templates and put them in a large ziplock bag, for waterproofing, along with the seed packets that get sown directly. I add a pencil to note changes–somethings look good on paper, but don’t work in reality. This method keeps everything together and dry while I’m playing in the dirt. A couple of times throughout the season, I try to take time for recording my overall impressions of successes and failures. Reviewing the notes and drawings from previous years usually brings a smile to my sun starved face.
I read once that the best,most important gardening book that I could read would be the one I wrote myself–the garden journal. I cut out pictures from seed catalogs and magazines and words– lets grow– fresh from the field–grow for my health,etc. Glued them on a 3 ring binder then a couple coats of mod podge. The outside’s done now to keep up with the inside records.
That was indeed a great idea! I like it!
This is a great post! I actually just started my gardening journal for my fall garden. We have two Community Garden plots and our balcony…alot to keep track of and a journal will help!
Have a lovely week.