A calendar with space for keeping notes can be a valuable tool for keeping contemporaneous garden records to consult as time goes on.

For Release On 01/22/16

By Dan Gill
LSU AgCenter Horticulturist

I often encourage gardeners to do a good job of keeping gardening records – although I must admit I could do a better job myself. Why? Because, keeping good records can help make you a better, more successful gardener. Records help you remember what worked and what didn’t. This makes your gardening efforts more effective and helps you avoid past mistakes.

You should keep track of a number of important things. They include: Planting information, such as what, how many and when plants were planted. Did any plants die? When did insect or disease problems appear and what treatments were used? When and how much fertilizer was applied? Which bedding plant and vegetable varieties were the most successful and which were flops?

Also record weather information and anything else you think is important.

Mark a calendar

Buy a month-to-month calendar with big spaces for each day. When you come in from the garden, stop and jot a few brief notes in that day’s square. It takes just a few minutes to note the essentials.

Although not very detailed, you’ll be surprised at the amount of useful information you will have accumulated by year’s end. At that time, you can sit down with the calendar and summarize the performance of individual plants, when different things happened in the garden, such as pest outbreaks and peak blooming periods, weather conditions and when plants were planted.

Take a picture

Photographs and video recordings can be valuable in making a garden record. A garden’s appearance can change radically from one season to the next. A visual record is often invaluable, particularly when it comes to remembering which color combinations were especially attractive and which should not be repeated. It is also a quick way to record where and what things were planted. This is really easy to do with digital cameras and computers.

As you play back the video or go through your photos, it is amazing to watch the transformations that take place through a year and from year to year

Keep records on file

A handy way to keep track of the performance of vegetable and ornamental plants is to make notes on file cards. It’s easy to separate the cards into various categories with dividers. As you record comments, place the cards into categories, to such as: “Rose Bed” or “Front Lawn” or “Tomatoes.” Don’t forget to date all of your entries.

This record system makes it a snap to look up information on a particular plant or landscape area by reading the cards in that particular category.

Start a journal

A journal is like a diary and can be a very satisfying way to keep garden records. Although this is a more time-consuming method, it gives you the opportunity to record comments, feelings and details that breathe life into your records. You also can use it to develop ideas and plans for future gardening efforts.

For practical recording, a notebook is more likely to be used if it’s handy to the garden. To keep the notebook readily available, clean and dry, you can do something like installing a mailbox on a post in the garden. You can keep a notebook in the mailbox and never have to put off jotting down information until you go into the house. The mailbox also makes a good place to stash garden gloves and small tools.

Use your computer

In this age of computers, don’t forget they can also function very effectively in garden record keeping. Virtually any method of record keeping may be adapted to the computer. An advantage of computer record keeping is the ability to organize information in a variety of ways, edit entries easily, make duplicates of information and store information in the computer, as hard copies or on CDs.

With a computer, you can even combine techniques. For instance, it’s easy to paste a digital photograph of a garden bed next to the journal entry that discusses it. Digital images of insect, weed and disease problems can be pasted into text that identifies the problem and includes control recommendations. You could even include links to websites you have found that are helpful in identifying and controlling pest problems.

Start tomorrow

Well, maybe not tomorrow, but definitely soon. Once you see how useful the information is to your gardening efforts, you will realize it is well worth the time.