How to document your garden

GARDEN JOURNALING! 

Ah yes...The beginning of a new season. And with it, all the hopes of actually keeping track of things this year... but a few months from now, you'll be squinting at your little seedlings wondering which-is-what... am I right!? haha! Yes this happens to the best of us!  This is why journaling even this early is SO IMPORTANT! :) If we don't start documenting now, then we won't do it later when we're busy with weeding and watering and harvesting either! It's so important for long-term gardening. It helps you get to know your micro-culture. Your own specific weeds, diseases, where the sun shines best, which soil works best, what  varieties of certain plants did best or poorly, etc... But in order to know all this, we need to DOCUMENT DOCUMENT DOCUMENT! :)

This year, I'm making my own journals. One focused on seed saving and seed sprouting, one for planning out my garden plant locations, and one for general journal documentation throughout the summer as I see fit.

So this year, I did a bit of research into garden journaling. There are lots of really good tools out there already, which is great! Even some awesome options available on amazon. So if you like detail, and filling things out, here's a couple of good options for you that I pondered over on amazon.  
(please remember I'm not sponsored or coerced into sharing these with you. They are genuine recommendations that I receive ZERO kick-back from. :) so do with them, what you will.)

Ready-made Journals to buy:

This one is very basic. It has a bit more freedom to record what you like. The price point is extremely affordable which is a plus! You would be purchasing one of these each year to record things in. There are other cover designs available too.

This one is a bit more costly, but, for moleskin it's very affordable. It also has really good reviews regarding the intuitiveness of the content sections.

And this is the one that I'm currently pining over. It's a 5 year log book where you can record whatever you need to by date. This means I can also log information about house plants over the winter. when they flower, if i've propagated. When seeds are bought and where, sales etc... It's also water resistant which is a plus for dragging it out into the garden all summer too.

Online Templates to print 

If you're more of a  DIY person than a buy-it kinda person, then there are also some really great free printables available. You can buy a binder and print out whatever sheets you would like to use.

From my research, this set of free printables is like a gold-mine! I saved these all as PDF's to my computer, and I will be using them throughout the summer!

Free-Spirit style!

 But in the end... if you're more like me, you don't like to be confined to someone else's idea of what you should document and record. You like the freedom to write what you want, observe what you want. Notice patterns that others haven't thought of, etc... If that's the case, OPEN UP A BLANK WORD DOCUMENT MY FRIEND and start making your own templates!! :)

So far, I've made two templates I'm working with. One that I am recording my timeline As-I-Go, with dates, what I seeded, and when it germinated. The other is a plant-by-plant detail sheet. So every seed I plant, gets a section, where I  can record things throughout the entire summer. Disease resistance, where I planted it, germination rates, how vital the plant was, how well it produced, when it was finished etc... basically whatever I want. Then next year when I'm picking seeds, I can learn from what I grew the previous year. Anyways, out of the ignorance of my technical side, I've taken a screen shot of my currently created journaling pages for you to see! lol! If you're interested in having any of them, just comment and we'll find a way for me to email you the PDF files! haha!

 Until next time, keep those thumbs green! :)