Keep a Garden Diary for Reference During the Current and Future Growing Seasons
When you think of gardening tools, things like gloves, shovels, and garden knives probably come to mind. But it turns out there is something else that can be extremely valuable to your garden: a diary. In an article for Food52, Master Gardener Nadia Hassani explains why. Here’s what you need to know.
How to choose a gardening diary
There is no “perfect” gardening magazine. In fact, according to Hassani , it can take several different forms:
How you keep track of what you grow – with a garden app, notepad, monthly planner, index cards, or spreadsheets – doesn’t matter as long as it works for you and you jot things down while they’re still fresh in your memory. As with everything else, keeping records takes the guesswork out of gardening so you can focus your efforts on keeping your plants thriving.
Basic information for recording
Whether you are a seasoned gardener or relatively new to the activity, Hassani believes that two things are important in a garden journal:
Cards
Specifically, you will want to draw a scaled map of your garden and write down what you plant and where. Here is Hassani to explain why :
Find out how much space each crop will need, mark it on the map and plant accordingly. Next year you will need a map for your garden to practice crop rotation, a very old farming method that avoids planting crops of the same families in the same spot for at least two years in a row. For example, peppers, eggplants, potatoes, and tomatoes are in the nightshade family, so you should not plant tomatoes in the same spot where you planted the peppers the year before.
Planting and fertilizing dates
It’s a little easier than making a map. Basically, you want to record what you planted and when. This is especially true if you are starting with seed, Hassani writes, “so you know in what time frame you can expect to grow, or if the seeds will not germinate and you should re-sow.”
Also keep track of the dates when you fertilize your garden, as well as the type of fertilizer you are using. Do the same for any pest or disease control product. “In general, too little is better than too much, because overusing fertilizers or chemicals can harm your plants,” says Hassani.
Additional useful information
Aside from drawing a map and writing down important dates, Hassani says there are a few more things more advanced gardeners might want to include in their diary. These include:
- Harvest timing (so you know what to expect next year)
- What pests are the problem and when
- Your favorite plants and where did you buy the seeds / seedlings.