Making a Garden Journal

Start a vegetable garden journal now so you can begin planning for next year. Use a notebook of any sort and notate things you think would be helpful in future planning.

These are the things I'm including in mine:

Dollars spent on seeds, fertilizer, soil and such.

Names of the seeds planted, date planted, and dates of first harvest.

Cost of vegetable plants to track savings from starting from seed. At $3.50 per plant versus $1 per seed packet, I saved $96.This will motivate me to start seeds on time.

Names and types of fertilizers along with how often applied.

Number of each vegetable planted.

Map of garden so I'll remember what was planted where.

General notations about diseases, problems, what worked and what didn't.

Log the weight of the produce as it comes in to track real grocery store savings.

Happy gardening!

By Tracey from Jacksonville, FL

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Related:
Keeping A Garden Journal

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By 04/29/2010

A friend of mine is a master gardener with the state and she also writes down the high and low temps of the day, also noting when each flower opens, etc. Planned her daughter's wedding around the garden's fullest potential.

By 04/29/2010

Great idea, but I have never been able to get it to work for me through 40 years of gardening. Things begin to produce so fast that there is no real way to keep up with it. It comes down to either write or garden, and I prefer gardening.