January 1, 2009: A Garden Journal for 2009 and Beyond

I've been drooling over gardening journals today. I keep pretty good records on my computer, but sometimes I'd like to write things down where I can sit back and read and compare what I've done through the years. Most journals just cover one year. Some are so extensive they have room for ten years of records. I thought 3-4 years to a page would be perfect for keeping track of my successes and failures, so I designed a simple page (actually a series of pages) that would cover my gardening season from March 1 through October 30, with four years of records to a page. I'll print out these pages and keep them in a three ring binder at my desk.

***Click the photos to enlarge***

I also have pages for seed/plant inventories. Go ahead and drool over my seed expenses for the year.....you know you want to. I'd like to have $41.94 worth of seeds for $5.16 every year!




My third page is similar to the above, only it's for miscellaneous garden expenses (compost, tools, wood for garden beds, etc).

I'll also include plans, on graph paper, for each year's garden. Here is what I've decided to put in my east (#1 fence line) garden this spring (one square = 1 foot, MG = marigolds):




And here are the plans for my east (#2) gardens. The brown strips are where I'll lay the soaker hoses:




Not shown are the sugar snap peas that will cover 12' of the south fence, and cucumbers that will be planted along the fence on the west side of the yard.

I still have the north gardens, and the dog pen/arbor gardens to finish planning. I think I'm going to have to convince Mr. H to move that new fence about 8 feet closer to the house so I can make room for three more 4'x 8' (or longer) beds!

Happy New Year....let's make 2009 the "Year of the Garden"!