Keeping track

Quick, what variety of green bean is that in your garden? Which tomato did you try that got so diseased that it stopped producing already? And remember that perennial you planted a couple of years ago that is doing so well? Your friend would like to buy some from the same place, but exactly what variety is it, and where did you buy it? These are all questions that could easily be answered if you had thought to keep some kind of record of your gardening efforts.

Record keeping sounds not only boring, but tremendously time consuming and tedious, but it doesn’t have to be. Just keep track of the things that are important to you. Without some kind of record, you’re basically starting from scratch every year, free to make the same mistakes over and over. Different information is important to different people, so it takes a while to work out a system that will work for you, but I thought I’d share my record keeping habits to give you a place to begin.

My vegetable garden is a series of small beds, so I’ve made a blank of the basic layout that I photocopy. Then I fill in plant varieties, how many rows of each and planting dates. When I replace an early crop with something later, I use either a second page or squeeze the new information onto the first page. From time to time I make notes if something fails miserably or if I need to plant more or less next year. Some people note harvest dates and pounds harvested, but that gets way too tedious for me. These pages go into a ring binder. I also save the seed packets for a while, at least until I’ve placed my order for the next year. When I receive my new seeds, I write the date I plan to plant them on top of the packet and file them accordingly. That way, when planting day comes, I just grab the packs that are rubber-banded together for that date. If something will be planted again, I re-file that pack with the others that will be sown at the same time. It also helps to note planting dates on the calendar. Don’t feel obligated to plant on that exact day. I just use the calendar to remind me to plant some time near that date.

For the landscape plants, I have a file folder for each year. Whenever I buy something through the mail, I cut the picture and description out of the catalog and tape it to a sheet of paper, along with the name and phone number of the company. Before I did this, when plants would arrive in the mail, I sometimes had no idea why I had ordered them, what they were going to look like or where they should be planted. The receipt goes into the folder too, sometimes with a note of where I planted it. Store-bought plants are sometimes more difficult to keep track of. The receipt goes into the file, of course, and if there’s a big, descriptive tag with the plant it gets stapled to the receipt. I’m really not a fan of large tags in the landscape.

A small, discreet tag in the garden may last long enough for you to learn the plant’s name, but accept the fact that tags get lost, moved or destroyed, so if the name or variety of the plant is important to you, you must have a back-up system. Try taking a piece of graph paper and drawing the general shape of the garden bed. It doesn’t have to be to scale. Put a number in the approximate location of each plant and write the number and plant name underneath or to the side of the drawing. You may wish to include the year of purchase or other information, which you find useful or interesting. Be sure to label each drawing so you know which bed is which! Photos are helpful, as are notes to remind yourself of what needs doing in each bed next year. All of this also goes into the three ring binder.

Looking back on all of your records from year to year is not only essential for good garden planning; it also serves as a reminder of how far you’ve come as a gardener. So this weekend, start gathering any information you have lying around and get outside to take notes before frost erases this year’s accomplishments (and mistakes), and memories begin to fade.