SETTING UP A LOOSE LEAF GARDEN JOURNAL
The Garden Journal is not a diary, nor is it a reference, except for it being a reference on your own garden. It is a record keeper, organizer, planner, and sometimes includes your thoughts on working in a garden. It is a memory jogger, returns former years and people to you, livens up your photography, and computer skills. It is all those things and more, much more. But you can add some daily events there too, and I will repeat this often, Its your book.
In this article I am concerned in getting you started on a working journal that will last for years, and that will target just your garden. There are many good references for year around garden use. Use those references with your journal. The references I saw are excellent, but use them in conjunction with your journal.
Your journal should be used for what is IN your garden, and it will be full. We want to have a garden where we know what is happening, and when things are needed to be done. The journal seems like an answer, but we seldom achieve what the gardening journal is meant to do.
Many of the remarks in this blog will fit zone 5. If you are in another zone you will need to readjust the work and plant schedules to suit your zone.
Introduction to Garden Journaling
Most of you have heard or read the nursery rhyme “Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? Silver bells, Cockleshells and Pretty Maids all in a row.” The real history of that rhyme, I think, refers to a period in English history referring to ‘Bloody Mary’, but if Mary was a gardener it sounds like she did some planning for her own garden. At least she knew the plants there and how they were planted.
Anytime is the time for planning, but wintertime is, perhaps, the best season to start as you have a whole new year to begin again. We plan how we would change things, what worked, what didn’t, and why.
We get all those seed catalogs and study them. We think “Now what did I plant there? What variety? When? Was there a late frost? Oh why didn’t write that down?” We say, “OK, so I’ll label the flowers - that should do it.” No, it doesn’t. The label disappears, the ink fades from the sun, and looking back you remember the ‘other half’ telling you to diagram the garden, and you didn’t find the time. Now there are unnamed cultivars that didn’t come cheaply. Our memory simply isn’t good enough.
Keeping notes of conditions can give you an idea of the best time to plant certain crops or plants. A note of the latest frosts in the spring, and the earliest frost in the fall can give you your average growing season. Your area with its own conditions can be different from even your next door neighbor’s. With your journal you can begin to forge a tool that can be used from year to year for your own garden. Learning from experience is important, and we don’t have to start fresh each year. At least I don't.
Online, many people are publishing their garden journals, and the trend is gaining in popularity. The former years of experience in weather conditions may help gardeners to be better prepared. Some uses for a journal are taking notes while on a field trip, or about a demo garden looking at different varieties of flowers or vegetables, on a a trip or vacation with a special interest in a topic that you wish to explore in horticulture.
Photos taken on these occasions and of your garden and others can give you a warm feeling in the cold months, and a memory jogger.
Laying out your Garden Journal:
There are several different ways devised to do your journal. The journal is a planner, organizer, workbook, memory jogger, many things, so don’t limit yourself in space. Keeping space free is important for the other bits of information you will want to add later. If you get the wrong kind of journal it will just fill your bookshelf and collect dust. I have a few of those.
THERE ARE DIFFERENT WAYS TO ACHIEVE YOUR JOURNAL
Purchase a book.
One is just to go out and purchase one. It’s very simple that way, but limited, usually to only one year and what the journal allows for your expression in your book. Some are good. If you decide to go this route look them over to see which one will suit you best. There may be some loose leaf binder garden journals on sale, also, but I haven’t yet found any. If so even better. With this setup you will be able to extend your time with the journal for more than one year. Even the three year journals limit you considerably. There is also the disadvantage of redoing your plants and garden layout for the yearly journal to be ready for the next year’s journal. The only plus, if that, to this type of journal is the reference material. Reference material can be bought and kept in another book, and used in conjunction with the journal, as mentioned above. The journal will have enough work to do just keeping records of your work, and the thought of reference material here is superfluous.
Handmade books
Other ways are offered too.
Scrapbooking Style: You can make a handmade book in a very involved ‘scrapbook’ style with embellishments that are designed for appearance and not for usefulness. The embellishments can include scrap paper designs with flaps, glitter, brads, sequins, etc. These are usually offered as gifts and are not really useful for record keeping. It defeats the purpose of a garden journal, but makes a very pretty gift.
Informal Folded Sheets: Another handmade journal can include pages doubled over and used for taking notes. These are sometimes tied together by a ribbon or twine threaded through a couple holes punched in the middle of the paper to hold it together. It can useful for taking rough notes in the field or garden and is easily stored in a pocket, but it is not useful for taking full notes of the garden.
The availability of the note paper is nice, but a small note pad will do very well at these times.
Another problem I have had with small notebooks or wads of paper is they get lost or borrowed. Get the info into a permanent location. The wad of paper or the notebook are best used as a temporary notebook until you can get them to your regular journal. A larger copy of this method can be set up also with the pages just tied together with a ribbon or cord and could be considered as a more permanent record, but still not a good solution.
Book Binding: A journal can be made by a regular bookbinding effort using the coptic stitching in the spine (center of the pages where folded). The disadvantage here is the limitation of adding more paper to the journal as you go along, and the inability to keep the organization of the book in order.
You will need to know how the stitching is done and how to bind the cover and pages together. This effort is not practical and will not produce a good working garden journal. Not a good solution at all.
Here you will need a bookbinder’s skills. Fun to do maybe, but very likely not the time to learn when you are involved in working your garden.
Another method is to find a shoebox and dump the notes and empty seed packages into it till you are ready to organize the material. It’s OK to do this, but the problem is; you, likely, will not get to the final step of organizing. Do this with the book already started and finish organizing the book when you have more time.
And the way I like best is as follows as it allows space, versatility, individuality, and creativity.
2 or 3 ring Binder Note Book Cover: Buy or reuse a 2 or 3-ring binder note book cover. I have some old ones that I am using for this purpose. A plus for this method is that it can be inexpensive to put together. Purchased journals can range from $15 and up. You may or may not have the materials for the binder on hand, but it is very versatile. The 3 ring binder is sufficient, but its up to you. Again, its your book. It would require a hole punch.
Get some dividers to separate the sections. Make tabs so these sections can be easily found. The outside of the 2 or 3-ring notebook cover can be decorated, if desired, quite nicely. The cover can be of your own designing, and as it’s for personal use, pictures can be acquired to finish this off. Some binders have an outside pocket in the jacket and spine so that identification can be slipped in as well. Start off with lined note paper inserted for notes.
Keep motivated by doing one thing at a time. Start small with simple additions to the book, and add to the binder as you go along. You will want to keep a single page for each plant that you add to the garden or gardens. On these pages you will want to add name, proper name, location and picture, maturity time or bloom time, or any other pertinent information you feel you will need. More information will be added for these special pages later. Use tabs or markers to separate the different sections of the journal for easier usage.
Add to the binder: Note paper (lined note paper) and some plastic sleeves or envelopes.
Keep 3-ring plastic envelope sleeves and pockets in the Journal for the following:
- Articles. This can be cut and pasted from the internet, or copied from magazines, clipped out of newspapers. This is for your own reference.
- Empty seed packets. These can be used for information, or later for making labels in your garden.
- Warranties for equipment you may have purchased.
- Photos taken of special trips or gardens. These will be labeled/dated, and placed in envelope for display.
- Extra photos without a home yet.
- A place to store a CD of your garden
- Brochures. Gardens that you wish to visit sometime. Collect brochures, and store camera shots and videos here. When you have achieved this visit, add pages to your journal to reflect this.
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