How To Keep A Gardening Journal

It's easy to forget what you planted, what grew well and the things you tried and didn't work for you. Keeping a gardening journal allows you to track all of your garden successes and help you build towards even better results in future years. Knowing how to effectively keep a gardening journal can revolutionize any gardener's season.

What Is The Purpose Of A Gardening Journal?

The purpose of a gardening journal is to help gardeners track their successes and challenges. It is an invaluable tool to have in your arsenal when it comes to finding ideas, trying new things, and getting ahead of challenges before they take hold and become bigger problems. Keeping a garden journal helps you document your mistakes (and successes) so you can easily look back at them and learn from them for future growing seasons.

What Information Should I Track In My Journal?

There are a variety of pieces of information you should document to make your gardening journal as useful as possible. The information should include what, when, where, and how much you planted. Be sure to track the date of planting, where you placed your plants, and how much you planted. It's also helpful to record the kind of soil you used and any other climate details that will help you for future seasons.

Plant Variety

Be sure to record the specific variety of plant you planted. All plants respond differently to light and climate, and recording the variety of plant, as well as photos of them in different stages of growth, will help you gauge your success in each season.

Pests

Keeping track of pests and how you addressed them will help you determine the best ways to combat them in future seasons. Keep note of when and where you noticed the pests, as well as what methods you used to combat them. Additionally, record the results of your methods.

Harvest

Documenting the successes of your harvest is arguably one of the most important pieces of information to record in your gardening journal. Writing down when you harvested and how much you harvested can provide valuable insight for future plans.

Maintenance

Track the routine maintenance of your gardening area such as watering, fertilizing, trimming, and tilling. Document how often you completed the maintenance, what methods you used, and if there's anything else you can adjust to have a better result in the future.

Weather

Weather plays an integral role in any outdoor garden, and having records of the temperature and rain of each week or month can be very helpful when planning for future seasons.

Where Do I Start?

Whether you write in an old-fashioned paper and pen journal or something digital, the important part is documenting your journey. Gardening is a trial and error process, and keeping a journal of your experiences will help you improve over time. Not to mention that you can look back on successes and get excited for the upcoming growing season.

Accessibility

Having an easily accessible record of your garden's progress is invaluable. Many gardens' journals are completed entirely paper and pen style, but there are digital versions and apps that make keeping a gardening journal much more streamlined. Creating an online or app-based journal allows you to easily add photos and notes from every season.

In Summary

A gardening journal is an invaluable tool that can help you in future seasons. By taking notes on when, where, and what you planted, knowing the weather, recording successes and challenges, and tracking maintenance, you can have a successful garden every season. Whether you choose to keep your journal paper and pen style or digitally, with a little work and a lot of forecasting, you'll have a beautiful garden in no time.