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One of the easiest ways to start garden recordkeeping is to use a gardening periodical template. My real life garden periodical consists of a few variegated parts which I’ll explain in this article.
Garden recordkeeping helps you wilt a largest gardener over time. You train yourself to pay sustentation to what is happening in the garden and that knowledge assists your learning and skill building.
Recordkeeping also reduces the guesswork from year to year. After awhile, the gardening seasons uncork to run together in our memories. How many basil plants did you plant last year and in what bed? What well-nigh two years ago? Three years ago?
What variety of tomato was that orange one in the corner of the garden? It was delicious, but you can’t for the life of you remember its name. Too bad, you’d like to grow it then if you knew what it was…
I believe that keeping records is an essential part of gardening, expressly if you don’t want to make the same mistakes year to year. And, I’m a big proponent of simplicity in the garden.
Keeping things quick and easy increases the endangerment that you’ll stick with them.
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Many years ago, when I started keeping largest records of my garden, I wanted to alimony everything in an hands wieldy place. After thinking well-nigh various solutions for a while, I had the unconfined idea to start a garden binder.
I dug out an old folder from my home office, grabbed my newly drawn garden map and planting schedule (parts 2 & 3 below), punched a few holes in them, and inserted them into the binder. That was many years ago and I’ve used my garden folder overly since!
Over the years, I’ve trained myself to take my folder out to the garden with me when planting so I can alimony track of exactly what I’m doing. Every time I plant a vegetable I write lanugo the vegetable (or flower or herb), date, variety and amount planted.
My folder is moreover where I alimony handouts from classes and workshops I shepherd and pages for notes (part 4 below) I want to jot lanugo well-nigh the current season. My folder has wilt an essential part of my gardening routine and has helped me wilt a increasingly observant, and thus better, gardener over time.
Dig In: Your work is to start your own garden folder today! If you have an old folder laying virtually your home office, this is the perfect use for it. There are moreover lots of binders to be found at thrift stores. My favorite verisimilitude is turquoise, so I bought this one.
The folder I use has a plastic sleeve on the outside where you can insert a cover. When I launched my book, Smart Start Garden Planner, I gifted readers with the unelevated printable imbricate for their garden binder. You’re welcome to click on the image to print it out for yours!
The map of my front yard garden – ready to be planted!
The second important element in your gardening periodical template is a map of your garden. When I first started gardening, I’d stick the little variety marker that came with each plant right in the soil next to the seedling when planting. Of course, by the end of the season, the tag would disappear or fade from the sun and then I wouldn’t know which plant was which variety.
I’d finger frustrated when there was a pepper that I loved and wanted to grow again, or a tomato that didn’t produce well that I would rather not grow next year, but I’d have no idea what they were considering the tag was gone.
One day while working in my garden, I was struck by a genius idea: “I should make a map of my garden!” I exclaimed to myself. I ran when to my house, grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil, and then stood at the archway to my garden and sketched a quick map of the layout.
The good news is that making your map can be as simple or as involved as you’d like. When I drew my first garden map, I stood outside my garden and drew a quick outline of each of the beds. The map was increasingly like a rough sketch of my garden space than a precisely drawn map. It worked perfectly fine for seven years.
At my current house, I brought out the measuring tape and drew the garden to scale. I measured the width and length of each bed and the space between the paths and laid it all out on graph paper. And honestly, that was overkill considering I never use those measurements.
These are the two options for making a map of your garden—the bare-bones tideway and the wide approach.
The yellowish wreck tideway is to simply sketch your garden on paper without worrying well-nigh the measurements. You’re basically drawing the garden beds freehand on a piece of paper so you can write lanugo what you plant in each one throughout the season.
The wide tideway is to create a scale drawing of your garden by using a measuring tape and drawing it out on graph paper. The main reason to create an word-for-word drawing is if you want to plan out what you’re going to plant in every garden bed on paper surpassing the season starts. (I never do this.) Considering you have the measurements of the garden beds, you can summate exactly how many plants or feet of each vegetable you’ll be worldly-wise to fit in each one.
For most gardeners, the yellowish wreck map is the weightier choice. I encourage you to segregate this option unless you’re a very experienced gardener.
What my garden map looks like towards the end of the season.
Ultimately, whatever map-making method you segregate doesn’t really matter—just get the map done! When your map is drawn, go over the lines in a darker marker or pen. This will be your master copy. Alimony your master reprinting on file so you can transpiration it if needed. Make a handful of Xerox copies or scan the master reprinting into your computer and print it out.
I unquestionably take my map to Kinkos and reprinting it onto 11 x 17″ paper so it has increasingly space to write on. It folds neatly in half when place in my binder.
At the whence of each season, pull out a fresh reprinting of the map and start recording. Get in the habit of taking your map out with you when you’re working in your garden. Alimony it simple and record the date of planting, vegetable, variety, and how many you planted.
Keep these notes on your map and you’ll start to have a tabulation for your garden that will support you in not reinventing the wheel each season.
Dig In: Gather your supplies and take a trip out to your garden to yank your garden map. Remember, it’s largest to create a simple map than nothing at all!
To stave two of the most worldwide mistakes I see gardeners making – waiting too long to start planting in spring and not standing to plant throughout the season – I recommend creating a planting schedule
I have an unshortened vendible that explains how to summate the dates for your custom planting schedule, including a template you can print out and add to your binder.
I used to alimony a few zippo pieces of paper in my folder for writing random notes throughout the season. But, they were disorganized and not very useful. So, a few years ago I decided to create a increasingly well-spoken way of keeping notes and ideas for my future gardening self.
Instead of having keeping track of everything on one or two pages, I decided to diamond a gardening periodical template to split my recordkeeping into increasingly specific pages for each of the most worldwide vegetables and herbs I grow. That way I’m worldly-wise to see everything I want myself to know well-nigh a particular vegetable like tomatoes or beets in one glance.
I’ve found this to be a much increasingly helpful format. I reference my garden periodical pages when ordering seeds to remind myself of my favorite varieties. When I’m getting ready to start seeds indoors in late winter I take a squint at the Seed Starting page. I pull out a vegetable specific page in spring when I’m well-nigh to plant it in my garden just in specimen there’s anything I should alimony in mind.
And throughout the season while I’m working in my garden, I unchangingly have my garden folder nearby in specimen I’m struck with a unconfined idea or want to send a message to next year’s gardening self, i.e. plant fall beets older or lacinato kale is the most susceptible variety to white cabbage butterfly.
As a souvenir for you, I’m sharing my printable gardening periodical template for you to transmute and use this season. Make sure you print it out and make it the heart of your garden binder. The first page is a sample with some notes on how I use it.
Having a folder with a map, planting schedule, and gardening periodical template will make keeping simple records a breeze! This recordkeeping helps you wilt a largest gardener over time. You train yourself to pay sustentation to what’s happening in the garden and that knowledge assists your learning and skill towers from year to year.
Do you alimony records of your garden each year? If so, what methods have worked for you in the past and what important things have your learned? Leave a note in the comments below.
Your garden dreams really can come true . . . you just have to plan for them! If you’d like some guidance in creating a smart and simple plan for a successful season in your garden, here’s how I’d love to help.
BOOK: Smart Start Garden Planner: Your Step-by-Step Guide to a Successful Season. In this book, I help you delve deeper into the variegated characteristics of all of the vegetables. I plane created a Veggie Essentials Cheat Sheet table with each vegetable and everything you need to know well-nigh it. Including in which season it will produce a harvest, how many day it takes to grow to harvest size, and recommended varieties.
MASTERCLASS: Success in Every Season – Each season we’ll focus on exactly what you need to know to be successful in that season. The seasons build upon one flipside (just like in your garden!) to create a well-constructed toolkit of skills that will set you up for a lifetime of gardening. Find out increasingly here.
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