Your Garden Journal is Forever
date of first bloom or, in the case of vegetables, the date the plant produced a pickable crop.
These are the records I actually refer back to from year to year. The little hand jotted dates are the best reference I have for when to start seeds, how far to count backwards from the average frost date. They show me that the temperature on the top of my particular refrigerator consistently sprouts tomato seeds in x number of days and that in my particular basement, it takes about so many weeks for them to reach transplant size. That is useful stuff!
In the beginning especially, it is a good idea to leave yourself ample room for expository and expressionist notes. These make the most interesting reading in retrospect. There are wonderful lines in my book where my daughter, then age five, listed the names of the seeds she had planted. "V-I-O-L-a" it says.
There are notes to myself, scrawled boldly in red ink "Start these later next time!!!!!" And there are little numbers to show how many days to germination: a little three with a circle around it shows me that the fastest sprouter on record happened back in 1994 -- the little things came up in three days! I have proof, it's in the book.
Which brings us back to the whole idea: getting ready to plant seeds. This is the time to plan and send in seed orders or begin scouting the seed racks, and your trusty book whatever its form will help you remember exactly what you've done in the past. Or guide you in the future, depending on how you like to look at the world.
ENJOY!
Did you know? I've written close to 200 columns at the Cottage Garden topic. Here's the list!
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