There are a number of what I would have to call "fancy" garden journals on the market today, and some of them are very nice indeed. For example, Gardener's Supply is offering a newly created and beautiful journal cum gardening textbook. I previewed it briefly last fall and it should be a serious journal keeper's dream. Lots of "to do" lists and calendars and gardening help.
In some ways I view helpful books like this with suspicion, much as I view the blank books for personal journal keepers and the crisp pages of a brand new empty diary.
On the other hand, you might be encouraged by the grand tome, find solidarity with its solidity, and take comfort in its dignified and sobering presence. You might take heart and find energy and confidence therein, and if so, welcome such a garden journal, the daytimer for the well prepped successful gardener. Gardening is so personal, if it works for you, do it!
But it's just not for me. I would feel so guilty when I spilled the ever present coffee into it, broke the spine trying to cram in one more article torn out of a magazine, watched helplessly as it teetered and then slipped just beyond grasp into the mud beside my bulb planting hole.
I am intimidated by the presumed richness, the heft of the paper, the carefully drawn charts and tables. My gardening is not all that neat and tidy, and neither is my hand writing. Sometimes my planning is muddy, and my bedraggled notebook has little dabs of mud in it, too. My gardening style has been termed lackadaisical and reliant on serendipity. Such a style does not fit in a formal program, a canned record keeping system of preordained slots. When the journal allows for expansion, it becomes a suitcase. Lose that, and your world comes to an end!
Currently I am using a simple bound book, a gift from a gardening friend, for garden notes. It has designated sections, "roses" "plans" and the like. I ignore those and plow on. The notes are brief but to the point.
In the past,I have used a simple college ruled notebook to record critical information. I penciled in my own columns. For seed starting, that would be the brand and name of the seed including variety, date planted, date germinated, date moved up to a pot, date transplanted to the garden, date of first bloom or, in the case of vegetables, the date the plant produced a pickable crop.
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