Keeping a Garden Journal

One of the keys to being a successful gardener is to keep a detailed record of your gardening activities, a garden journal. 

After a number of years, it becomes an invaluable guide to help you with planting, harvesting, predicting weather patterns and preventing/controlling diseases and pests.

What information should a good journal contain?

1. Names of plant varieties

It's important to be able to look back at what you planted so that you can determine which plants and varieties performed successfully in your garden.

2. Dates and temperatures

Recording when you started seeds and transplanted seedlings, and the temperatures of air and soil, help you to accurately determine future planting dates. Recording days to germination gives you an accurate record of how long it takes for seeds to grow in your particular environment.
Recording monthly rainfall and average high and low temperatures can also help give you an accurate picture of your growing conditions.

3. Harvest records

Keeping track of when harvests begin and end, and how much is harvested, allows you to measure performance from year to year.  These can be as detailed as recording the number/weight of each individual variety within a group, or a general bulk weighing of harvests. Recording flavor profiles of individual varieties will help you to remember which ones you want to grow in subsequent years.

4. Disease and pest records

This helps you to determine when, where and what diseases and pests will be an issue. It also will help you to keep track of successful methods of prevention and control.

5. Soil condition and fertilization

Helps you know what nutrients your plants need and when to apply them.

It is also be helpful to record garden layouts, pollination rates, pollinator records and mistakes made.