I keep seeing it pop up when researching and wanted to hear from other gardener’s about how they manage their garden information. Pen and notebook? Special designs? Online?
Personally, I’ve never kept anything previously so each year will be a semi-fresh start and daily online searches to find solutions. This year I hope to at least write stuff down; seeds we have, easiest plants to collect seeds from, best/worst companions, harvest time/sprout time, and disease/pest prevention methods.
I’m not very organised on paper but I love my pollinator plants and try to focus on resilience. I have kept every tag from plants I have planted even if they did not survive.
I store my seeds by the time of year that I sow them (vertically so I can sort through quickly enough).
Then I do a walk through with my phone video at different times of year. Between the videos and the photos I have a nice visual reference of what was looking happy in the garden at different times of year.
Lastly I have a insect ID app (Picture Insect) for pollinators and pests. My photos in there and the dates can tell me which plants were good hosts to pollinators, which were harmed etc.
I’m using Google Docs as a journal.
Pen and paper is how I do it. I keep track of what I planted the previous year and if it grew well where it was, which helps me draw up the plan for the next year.
A fair amount of experimentation goes into it though—I usually pick a new type of plant to grow each year. Some recent picks were multi-colored carrots, spaghetti squash, and cinnamon basil. But I’m not a hardcore gardener by any means.
I hope your garden turned out well this year!
