Garden Journals – Tips and Succesful Techniques

Keeping  a Garden Journal is a way to keep track of your successes and even yard and garden history.
photo credit: net_efekt

You can keep a record of your garden planting layouts to practice crop rotation, evaluate how you use your space and write down your successes and areas where you would like to see improvement. If you found a short cut or valuable growing tip make sure you write it down.

I use a garden planner called veg-grow to help me with my garden design. By keeping a record of each garden plan, its easier the rotate my crops and control insects and diseases.

By keeping track of your rain and temperatures you can begin to gauge when crops can be started and best times to harvest. My Uncle has recorded 20 years of rain, temperatures, and frost dates in his area. This is an invaluable tool he uses each season. Neighbors come over to take a peek at the journal and ask garden and growing questions.

Including photographs of your garden and yard marks history for you and your family. How your garden changes and new shrubs and trees in your yard can be recorded.

I usually keep the care instructions that come with perennials, shrubs and trees and add to the garden journal. That way if I have a problem I know where to look for the solution.

One year I let my nephew David have the lower corner of my garden to plant in. He played with trucks and bulldozer more than gardening but he had a small crop of tomatoes, lettuce and beans. He also struck water with his one excavation! (Yes, this was a low laying corner where I had a water problem.)

Together we layed in a water canal and it just ended up draining my soil and creating a wonderful play area for him. He still to this day enjoys gardening and I have wonderful photos of a 4-year-old child covered with mud.

The key to a successful garden journal is to keep it simple. Make it an enjoyable event not a task.

You can purchase a garden journal, use a scrapbook or make you own.

Technorati Tags: crop rotation, garden crafting, garden planning, garden tips

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 11:52 am and is filed under garden crafting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.