Doesn’t that just sound like such an official thing to do? Like you are a serious gardener or homesteader who knows their stuff and is tracking important data, or just growing so many amazing things that they could never hope to remember them? Well don’t panic, I truly believe that a garden journal can be helpful for even a backyard garden. (Though with my memory, piles of produce are definitely not required before I forget Very Important things!)

Are you blown away yet? Terrified of the meticulous data I am clearly collecting? Convinced that you will never match my level of dedication? It’s true, your eyes don’t deceive you. That is a genuine dollar store notebook. The one and only piece of equipment required for this exercise. (Unless you plan to be that person who points out that clearly I used a pencil as well…)

There are absolutely more complicated ways to do this. In fact my lovely sister just gave me an amazing year long garden planner for my birthday that I will enjoy playing with this year, but that is definitely not required to get started. I have been using this notebook happily for years and it has helped me a lot. It comes out every year long before the snow melts. I start by making two big lists; the seeds I already have leftover from last year, and the plants I plan to plant. This is the place where I let myself dream a little. I will narrow it down later, when I actually have to make this list fit into my garden space, but what is the point of gardening if you don’t have room for a bit of wishful thinking?

In the next step I do a rough sketch of my garden. No artistic talent required! Mine isn’t remotely to scale. In fact, my yard isn’t even a rectangle. There is a good chunk of my yard that is open grass for the kids to play in, but why would I leave half a page blank and draw the garden so small that I can’t comfortably write plant names when it doesn’t matter? This is entirely for the sake of mapping out what I can realistically fit and where I want it to go. Being able to look at past years helps me with crop rotation. I can’t really do this as well as I would like due to space limitations, but even what I can do helps cut down on pests and disease.

I also try to take a few minutes in the fall to very briefly note how each thing I grew did. This is very basic, usually just the plant name and a quick note. Sometimes just a few words (“Did great!” or “Too wet, powdery mildew”). During the fall it is obviously hard to find extra time when the garden already needs so much from you, but I have really appreciated the data from the years I have managed it. It lets me know if a plant does better in a certain part of the garden, or if this was just a bad year because of the amount of rain fall. It also lets me know when to give up on growing something myself because it is just not thriving in my garden. When you have limited space it is essential that everything counts! Wouldn’t you rather have room to try that fun new variety you’ve been sighing over than to beat your head against the wall trying to keep a sickly common vegetable alive?

Other than that put in whatever strikes your fancy! Having ADHD I tend to go down a lot of rabbit holes, it can be fun to look back and see what I was researching in a given year. I have lists of edible plants native to my area, frost dates and their historical variations, companion planting notes, crop rotation guides, seed saving tips and how many of each type of plant you need for genetic diversity, diy soil amendment recipes, dye garden ideas and more.

If nothing else it will help you remember where you planted which seeds so that you don’t have to let the weeds grow until your seedlings are big enough to identify the plant. At least you won’t if you actually follow your plan properly, or write down any changes. Which I definitely always do. I would of course not be offering you planning advice if I had planted five different kinds of perennials last fall that I promptly forgot to mark in any way…