Taking Stock

Now that the gardening season is winding down, it is time to take stock of the successes and failures of our gardening efforts. One good way to objectively review the previous growing season is to maintain a record. Here you will find some tips for starting and maintaining a gardening journal.

Gardening journals do not need to be elaborate. They do not need to be expensive. One good method is to use a large, five subject notebook. I use a college-ruled notebook which has pockets in the dividers. This allows me to not only add entries to my journal, but it also allows me to stash clippings from useful articles, gardening catalogs and the like for future reference and for addition to a journal page later on.

I use four of the subject areas for each season, starting with winter through fall. The final section is used for miscellaneous gardening information, references, and for plant descriptions from various catalogs and from empty seed packets. This last section is a great resource when I start browsing through the plant catalogs for the upcoming season.

Journaling can vary from very detailed to bare-bones. I like to maintain a journal at least on a weekly basis during the winter season, but as gardening activity starts to pick-up during the growing season, so do the entries and details in my journal.

I do like to keep track of the daily weather and temperatures, to see how the climactic conditions vary from year to year and to see what trends are developing in my area. In the winter, I will usually make one weekly post which includes the weather data for the week. I make daily entries until late fall, when I return to one weekly post.

Narratives are good, but photos are also indispensable. By taking photos of the good and the bad, I can refer back to what did or did not work in the gardens when I review the entries during the winter months.

Any disease or pest problems are also detailed. I also list what actions were taken and if the results were successful or not. Other items that I include are plant performance, length of time a particular plant has bloomed, when plants start to bloom, and anything that might help me to jog my memory when I refer back to the journal later on.

It does take a bit of discipline. I have maintained gardening journals for close to ten years now, and at first, it was difficult make entries on a consistent basis. I have found that as time goes along, I do make entries faithfully. The entries do not need to be whole essays, they just need to be a few phrases or sentences on a daily basis during the height of the gardening season and weekly during the quiet months.

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