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Garden Journal/Diary
Lulu The Lurcher
Posts: 258
in Talkback
Does anyone here keep an online garden diary/journal or just an old fashioned manual one?
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I'd like to have ago at this but haven't figured out a way of making the info easily retrievable for future use.
Do I simply make a daily note of each job I do/items sown or planted/foliage, flowers, fruits appearing or do I need a spreadsheet approach?
What do you do?
I keep a seed sowing diary, which lists the dates I sow, where I sow [ greenhouse, indoors etc ] and how well they germinate, plus anything else of interest.
This has now been going for about 10 years and I find it very useful to remind me when to do stuff.
I also make lots of to do lists, with jobs for the next few weeks. Unfortunately though I seem to make dozens of the lists, and can never find where I put them.
Writing a list sometimes seems to be a good way to put off doing something, a bit like revision lists at school.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
I've started mine in a word document this year. I tried a spreadsheet last year but didn't keep it up-to-date for very long. I've gone much more visual in the word document and paste any useful articles or add links etc.
So far it is a diagram of my veg plot from last year and the plan for rotation this year. Then I've listed each daily job I've done.
When I get my seeds sorted out I will put down the sowing and estimated harvest times for each month and see how that works out.
Not sure how to upload a file directly to a forum post, but would be happy to post it up if there is a way.
I've got one of these http://store.moleskine.com/gbr/en-gb/catalog/detail/passion-journal-garden/garden?vid=203&LGWCODE=9788862936231%3b90061%3b5459&gclid=CL3xqsmr_8ICFWXHtAodwlYA1g
I just need to start using it
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I haven't done anything yet but I think I might give word or publisher a bash as it would be easy to add photos and scanned in bits.
I think it would be useful to have a place where I can see what I've done, where and when then document the results.
Funny you should mention this as I've added thoughts and feelings this year to my notebooks. Just whatever is on my mind...
I don't do anything for veg except write the date of sowing on the labels but for many years I've been actively charting my garden progress as the design aspect is my greatest passion.
I've kept notebooks for sketches, diagrams and planting schemes lovingly coloured in and also a large folder of photographs over the years that averages out to about twice a month. I photograph everything including the gaps and ugly bits as I then use that data in the winter months to remember size and behaviour of some plants when re-designing my beds. Its also good for before and after pics where you can appreciate all that blood sweat and tears.
I have a Diary that I like to write what I've done each day, noticed needs doing or ordered. I also keep a blog
Not online, but I do exactly the same as punkdoc does.
Word is a good bet as it is likely to still be around in 10 years and the files can be read by lots of other software. It's important to consider this aspect as gardening-specific software is rarely well maintained and when you need to get a new computer it is often incompatible with new operating systems, so you end-up losing everything. Mine is still all in a book-bound notebook but it's rather tatty now!
I keep an old fashioned paper journal mainly for the allotment. I jot down anything I think is relevant or interesting and enjoy looking back through some of the comments. I also created a word document on my laptop but it doesn't seem the same somehow.