Tools Used for Gardening – Why You Need A Garden Journal
The Most Important Tools Used for Gardening – Trust Me!
Gardening is a lifelong hobby; it isn’t something that is mastered overnight. From year to year, we learn more about our yards, our plant preferences, our abilities, and most importantly: what we love about gardening. The most talented gardeners I’ve ever met are those who have had lots of trials and their share of failures. They taught me that one of the most important tools used for gardening are Garden Journals. Gardening is the ultimate example of learning from our mistakes! Garden Journals give us a fun, creative place to track our learning and plan for our best year yet!
Why I Love My Garden Journal
As an educator, I love learning! It’s what I live for and work for every day. The frustrating thing about learning in the garden is that we sometimes run out of time in one season to demonstrate we’ve learned from our mistakes. For example, packrats in the nearby desert came and mowed down my already-sprouted dahlias one year. (Check out my Ultimate How-To Grow Dahlias HERE!) UGH, packrats. My blooms were terrible that year! Now I put netting up around my tender sprouts and have strategically eliminated packrats in our yard. But learning in gardening means you may not be able to correct the issue until next growing season. And I don’t know about you, but that’s a long time to remember what I learned last year, or the year before…
A Garden Journal, I’ve come to believe, is a wonderful way to document all the little lessons that you learn along the way! Garden journals are not like shears, seed-heating mats (see my secret weapon in action here!), or wildlife attractors (see how I bring in songbirds). However, it is truly one of the most important tools used in gardening. I have lots of details in my journal that I never read again. But there are also little notes that save me in subsequent years from making that mistake again!
How I Started My Garden Journal
In 2017, I started recording various elements of my gardening experience. Viola! Here’s my first EVER Gardening Journal. This experience has made my thumb SO much greener, so I’m sharing it with you today. I hope you’ll take the leap and create one, too!
First, it’s important to remember that there is no perfect Garden Journal. The perfect Garden Journal is YOUR Garden Journal! It’s one of the most important tools used for gardening because it’s personal to your life. If you’re looking for the perfect methods, this is a great way to practice acceptance. Gardening is full of trials, successes, and plenty of failure. Your Garden Journal should not fall into the “failure” category in your mind! If you have one, it’s a success.
So be kind to yourself, my Fellow Gardening Friend!
Setting Up You Journal Sections
When I started my Gardening Journal, I set out to have two sections: Flowers and Edibles. Those were the two things, at the time, that most interested me. I created tabs for these two sections. As you can see from my image above, I have branched out!
Some people like to start new notebooks for each area of interest; I like to have everything in one place and really don’t like to waste paper! Plus one of my favorite road trip activities is to add illustrations to my Journal, so it’s nice to have everything in one place for now.
You can see that my interests have expanded since I created this years ago! I now have a tab devoted to my favorite flower, dahlias. They are so versatile, complex and interesting, I decided it was time to dedicate a whole section of my Journal to them alone. I’ve also added a section called “Chickens” because they, too, are complex! Creating the right habitat and choosing the right breeds for our family is very important, so it goes in here, too!
What do I include?
There is absolutely no right way to create a Gardening Journal. They’re as unique as you are! The possibilities are limitless, which makes them really exciting.
My Journal includes the following elements:
- Receipts from plant purchases (“Where did I buy those bulbs?!”)
- Images from catalogs so I can recall what colors I purchased when I ordered
- Lists including “go to” plants (that even I can’t kill in the desert!), my annual gardening to-do lists, wish lists for plants, habitats and yard features
- Illustrations of plants, garden plans, and layouts
Getting Creative
My passion for gardening is definitely genetic (thanks to Grandpa A and my mom). I start getting really antsy in January, and have been known to start my seeds WAY too early, just to satisfy my urges to grow things. (I don’t recommend that…)
My Gardening Journal helps calm this! While the Earth outside is still covered in snow and temperatures rarely get above freezing, I can dream about “what next,” make plans for this season, and reflect on my lessons learned in season’s past.
I have special markers, fine-tip pens and colored pencils I keep hidden from the girls (I want nice things, too!). These sit with my Gardening Journal and help me channel my creative energy toward an awesome growing season.
Other Tools Used for Gardening
Thanks to my years of documentation in my Garden Journal, I can proudly say that I have cracked the code on how to start plants from SEED! I am not exaggerating when I say that I’ve killed hundreds of plant starts, wasted a ton of money, and even more TIME trying to start plants from seed. Check out my secret seed-starting formula here!
I’m also the proud owner of my very first greenhouse. Check out which one I selected (entry level!) and how I chose it.
In addition, I’m an avid birdwatcher. Even though birdwatching isn’t technically part of gardening, I like a beautiful yard! Here’s how I attract hundreds of songbirds and hummingbirds to my yard. It really completes the picture!
Finally, I love a beautifully decorated patio in which to take in my hard work. Here’s how I made over my patio for around $100.
The Next Chapter
One of the best things about my Garden Journal is how unorganized it is, in the traditional sense. As a working professional with Type A tendencies, this definitely doesn’t fit my typical style!
But neither does Mother Nature.
I’ll continue adding to my current Garden Journal. I leave more space now on pages, because I like to add notes (like week-to-week updates on blooming seasons, challenges I had, etc). I hope you’ve come to see how a Garden Journal is one of the most important tools used for gardening. I’m clearly convinced!
I’d love to see photos and hear your reflections of your journey with a Gardening Journal! Feel free to drop a comment and let me know what works for you!
Happy Planting!
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