All you need to know about keeping a garden diary

A gardening journal can help you to keep a track of what was sown, planted, tended and harvested during the various seasons. 

It can also give you guidelines of what jobs to do when. Remembering that gardening is a never-ending learning curve. 

If you have a garden, or are thinking of starting one, keeping a regular diary where you jot down all manner of observations can be absolutely invaluable. It’s the perfect place to chart what grows when, and how well, from year to year, helping you plan and make good decisions in seasons to come.

Common things to record in your garden diary:

• When things get planted or seeded, and then planted out
• What is planted where, so we can possibly plan crop rotations
• Harvest dates and amounts
• Frosts
• Rainfall
• Seasonal temperatures
• The types of insects we see, both predator and pest
• Things that grow really well – and things that didn’t!
• Best time to fertilise, add compost, and mulch
• Anything else of interest we happen to notice

Having a place to record your observations is also a powerful way to increase your connection with your garden, while learning and deepening knowledge of your ecosystem. Keeping a nature or garden diary is a great way to practice this principle – while also fostering your creativity and allowing you to connect with where you are.

If you don’t have a garden, you can definitely still keep this kind of diary – it’s all about observing the seasons and the natural world around you.

A Garden Diary can also be a creative outlet, allowing you to not only keep records of gardening goings on but includes photographs, drawings, collages, and sketches, pressed leaves and flowers and more. Or a lovely mix of all of the above. Your garden diary could truly be a piece of art to keep year after year for practical and creative purposes. The addition of your thoughts and personal reflections of the garden and the season at hand could make this a lovely reflective piece of work for you to re-visit and share.

Other Garden Journal Contents

1. A sketch of your garden layout from season to season
2. Pictures of your garden
3. A list of successful plants and those to avoid in the future
4. Bloom times
5. A list of plants you'd like to try, along with their growing requirements
6. Plant sources
7. Backyard Counts – birdlife, butterfly species, pollinating insects
8. Design ideas and wish lists