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Track planting and harvest dates using a garden journal
Gardeners can create a simple garden journal using a plain spiral-bound notebook for tracking their planting date, harvests and other gardening information.
By Bobbie Whitehead
A journal can serve as important tool in gardening by allowing novice or veteran gardeners to chronicle the who, what, when, where and how of their planting.
For starters, writing down when specific fruits and vegetables were planted makes figuring out harvest times easier. Also, depending on the number of items planted, gardeners can better determine which fruit or vegetable didn’t sprout on time and replant.
Documenting planting dates, too, allows for successive planting for maintaining steady harvests without having gaps in between.
A journal can serve as important tool in gardening by allowing novice or veteran gardeners to chronicle the who, what, when, where and how of their planting.
For starters, writing down when specific fruits and vegetables were planted makes figuring out harvest times easier. Also, depending on the number of items planted, gardeners can better determine which fruit or vegetable didn’t sprout on time and replant.
Documenting planting dates, too, allows for successive planting for maintaining steady harvests without having gaps in between.
Gardeners, too, may find writing down the gardening details enables them to determine what worked and what didn’t. Some seasons a gardener may have a good year where fruits and vegetables grow as planned. By documenting the planting date, any fertilizer applications, weather conditions, and water needs, gardeners can determine more readily the cause of a crop failure if something goes wrong the next season.
Note taking, too, can enable the gardener to design the garden layout or designate where vegetables need to be planted the next season. Crop rotation for large-scale farmers is important and equally important for gardeners, too, since some vegetables need to be rotated to avoid emergence of pests as well as to offset soil nutrient depletion.
Some gardeners keep immaculate notebooks with everything ordered and alphabetized while others describe what they do daily as if keeping a diary. Even if the garden journal ends up resembling a scrapbook with notes, seed packets and receipts paper clipped or stapled to the pages, as long as the gardener can understand his or her style, the journal choice shouldn’t matter. Whatever method chosen, gardeners are sure to find journaling fun and rewarding since reference to what occurred will help with future planting.
In choosing a journal, gardeners may want to use a plain spiral-bound notebook or one designed specifically for journaling with separate sections for seasons, planting dates, soil and fertilizer information and crops.
Gardeners can also find free online garden journals they can print or save to the computer. Here are a few free journals online:
Note taking, too, can enable the gardener to design the garden layout or designate where vegetables need to be planted the next season. Crop rotation for large-scale farmers is important and equally important for gardeners, too, since some vegetables need to be rotated to avoid emergence of pests as well as to offset soil nutrient depletion.
Some gardeners keep immaculate notebooks with everything ordered and alphabetized while others describe what they do daily as if keeping a diary. Even if the garden journal ends up resembling a scrapbook with notes, seed packets and receipts paper clipped or stapled to the pages, as long as the gardener can understand his or her style, the journal choice shouldn’t matter. Whatever method chosen, gardeners are sure to find journaling fun and rewarding since reference to what occurred will help with future planting.
In choosing a journal, gardeners may want to use a plain spiral-bound notebook or one designed specifically for journaling with separate sections for seasons, planting dates, soil and fertilizer information and crops.
Gardeners can also find free online garden journals they can print or save to the computer. Here are a few free journals online:
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Arbico Organics of Arzo Valley, Ariz. This journal provides 24 pages in a PDF format that can be downloaded and printed. The pages include garden design, planting dates, weather information and notes.
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HomesteadHarvest.com has a free garden journal available in PDF format. The 19-page journal provides pages for documenting indoor seed starting, planting dates, fertilizer application, soil preparation and garden calendars, among others.
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You can also find free garden journal pages at HobbyGardener.com, which provides attractive pages for note taking and plant details.
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Gardeners wanting a more structured journal designed with them in mind might want to consider buying the Moleskine Passions Garden Journal – the price varies depending on where purchased, but it typically costs about $19.95 - at major book retailers. This attractive and functional journal has 240 pages, five sections, labels, hardiness zones, design grids, plant information, and, of course, pages for writing.
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Gardeners can also create a journal with word processing software such as Microsoft Word, which has gardening templates available for download. A few garden journal apps for smartphones, too, are available such as the iVeggieGarden for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, Garden Journal for iPhone, Photo Garden for the iPhone and iPad and Gardening for the iPhone and iPad.
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