Excerpting from a comment today…

My in the ground garden is not doing very well this year. Thank goodness for containers. I just came in from collecting some seeds and watering the yard. I have a new found and deep unbelieving of anything the weather forecast says when it comes to rain. I know forecasting isn’t the most precise thing, but really. They are trying to tell me the temperature and sea levels in 100 years but they can’t tell me the weather for tomorrow.

This year I think the biggest change in the garden will be planting things for a fall harvest. I got a new winter seed catalog, ‘Summer planting means winter harvest’ from Territorial. Maybe I’ll have better luck in the cooler weather. A lot of the ‘leafy stuff’ grows well into the cold- I will put that to the test. This year I left pumpkins out. My vines got really big but nothing came out of them. Eventually they died, I guess from bugs. If my zucchini doesn’t grow again this year I think I’ll leave it out next year. I am thinking maybe less variety next year but more of what I do plant.

One thing I’ve heard of a few times but haven’t done yet is start a garden journal. I would use a paper notebook, although an electronic one would work. To me some things are better on paper. Is anyone using a garden journal or thinking about it? …

Thanks Ralph, for your comments and today’s …

QUESTION:  Is anyone out there doing a garden journal?  I used to keep a notebook where’d I’d write down what I was planting (since otherwise, if they were unsuccessful, I’d forget what I’d tried).  I haven’t done that lately but I do think of the blogging as something of a journal.  I’ve been keeping journals for most of my life (I think 3rd grade is the earliest I remember), so I can see how this is like doing the online blogging thing is like journaling, but it’s different because, as open and honest as you want to make it, the fact of the matter is you’re still writing something anyone can read.  I think it’s hard to let go of that fact (and maybe better not let go of anyway).  Of course, depending on who’s around you, a journal, too, is something that might not end up being for your eyes only.

I think that keeping a gardening journal could be very helpful, as I think the act of gardening is transformative, and observing by recording a thing that’s transformational helps bring it into focus.  However, I think I’d have a hard time deciding whether it would be a more touchy feely kind of thing or if it would just be a record to help remember what’s underground, and how it’s behaving.  What kind of journal would yours be? Go ahead … gimme the dirt!  (I’d love to see an entry if anyone’s up for opening up their deepest darkest secrets from their own gardening – or other – journal)!