The Garden Notebook

Gardening is something that I don't think you can ever truly master.  There are so many variables.  The seeds, heat, rain, sunlight and soil, just to name a few.

One thing I find very helpful to keep track of my gardening from year to year is my Garden Notebook.  It starts with the seeds.

I document what was planted, how many and when.  Then I document when they started to sprout.

After that, I write down when they were planted out and how they did.  You can see by last year's notes that the lettuce was a bust.  I had planted them too early and they just didn't take well to being planted out. 

Another biggie, is knowing where you planted everything.  It's good to know so that you can rotate your crops effectively.  I find that I can always draw up a beautiful plan, but rarely stick to it.  The solution for me was to draw up a final plan.

This shows me where things got planted in reality.  I can show what got rotated in during the summer as well.  At the end of the summer, I make a list of things to change for the next year.  What went well, what didn't.

Separately, I keep a tally of what got canned and preserved.  This lets me know if I need to grow more or less of an item depending on our usage.  For instance, we're not big green bean eaters.  I have 20 more qts of frozen beans in the freezer.  I'll only plant a few for fresh eating this summer.  Also, last year was an amazing summer for tomatoes.  I canned up so many that we'll be good for a while.  Now, I won't cut back on those.  They're temperamental and a big part of what we eat.  What I will do, is experiment a bit on what I'll do with them.  But that's a post for another day.

Do you keep a notebook?  What do you keep track of?

This post is part of Simple Lives Thursday.  

Harvest Monday Dec 6, 2010

This week I went and pulled enough carrots to get us through a few weeks.  The fall harvest has been gorgeous.  It's really getting cold here lately and the ground is starting to freeze.  I have a feeling this will be my last harvest for quite a while.  There are still some odds and ends in the ground, but I will most likely leave them there until the next thaw.  I love looking at all the greens that everyone is harvesting and we have a few in the garden.  Unfortunately, my family only eats greens under protest.  It's all about babysteps. 

The rest of the garden has been put to bed for a few weeks, so nothing to report there.  I'm starting to plan for next year and will be adding another raised bed in the last space I have in my side yard.  There is a free planner on the Mother Earth News site that is very easy to use, so I've been playing with that.   The seed catalogs are dribbling in.  I've gotten 2 so far, one from Pinetree and the other from Totally Tomatoes. 

This post is part of Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions.  Head on over and see all the wonderful harvests.