Mark,

I have done it many different ways over the years.

In the beginning, as a newlywed in the early 1980s, I purchased a beautifully bound garden log with lined pages. I just recorded what I did daily (on the days I did anything at all). It worked well for me at the time. I made notes of what I planted, where I planted it, if I amended the soil for it, etc. If I encountered problems like a disease or severe bug infestation, I wrote down what it was and what I did about it. Back then, though, I worked full time, eventually had a child, and got involved in those school and extracurricular activities of his over the years, so my gardening was on a somewhat small scale compared to what I do now. Still, that sort of log worked for me during those years.

Flash foward to the mid-1990s. By then we were giving country living a trial, living on a family members's 3-acre place south of Fort Worth, just wanting to make sure we would like living in the country before we bought land and built a home in the country. It was terrible land with caliche clay soil and tons of white rock. I had to haul in a dumptruck load of a topsoil/compost mix and build raised beds in order to be able to grow much of anything. It was a labor-intensive process and I didn't journal much. What I did do was write things in the tiny squares of a wall calendar. Daily I recorded the high temp., low temp, and rainfall if any. I noted if I watered. I wrote simple planting notes like: "Planted broccoli and carrots." It did help me somewhat, but wasn't as beneficial as the more detailed journaling I had done while living in town.

Late in 1997 we bought our land in Oklahoma and moved into our completed house early in 1999. In between we had to clear a lot of brush by hand and fence 14.5 acres after hacking our way through the incredibly overgrown wooded area with a chainsaw, axe, weedeater, etc. During the year or so we were clearing and fencing the land I didn't journal 'cause we were only up here on weekends.

Once we moved into our house in the early spring of 1999, though, I kept TWO journals: a detailed daily log in a spiral notebook, and weather info and mini-notes on a calendar. I did the calendar for about 5 years. It helped me to learn and understand the weather pattern for our specific area. In the detailed daily log, I noted that day's activities, including what I planted, pruned, fed, watered, etc. and if I mowed, weed-eated, etc. I kept notes of predator damage (rabbits, deer, racoons, armadillos, etc.), looking for patterns. I kept EXTENSIVE lists of seeds started insided, dates stuff was transplanted outside, weather and its effects, etc.

After a few years of that, I am now pretty much journal-less. With 14.5 acres to keep up with, my time is at a premium and I don't have time to keep the extensive notes I once did. I still jot down occasional notes on my annual Seed Savers Exchange calendar, but you can tell when the gardening gets and stays really hectic because those calendar notes abruptly halt--usually sometime in late March or early April.

I do still keep extensive planting lists of the varieties of veggies and flowers planted. I keep them in a spiral notebook. At the end of the growing season I sometimes jot down notes about any varieties that did especially well or especially poorly.

Mostly, though, I keep it all up in my head. For example, I have tried about 300 different varieties of tomatoes just since we moved here, with most of them being heirloom varieties. I give a variety 3 years to perform well enough to make the permanent list. All that info is in my head, although bits and pieces could be found in various planting journals and calendar notes from the last 8 years. You could ask me about a particular variety and I could pull it right out of my head and tell you how it did and whether it was worth keeping or not. So, I use the journals, lists, logs, and calendars less each year as the patterns of planting and harvesting, pruning and transplanting, feeding and watering, etc. have become second nature.

I think that a log or journal is immensely helpful when you are starting out on a new (to you) place. By recording data, you begin to see certain patterns over the years. However, as time goes on, more and more is ingrained in your head, hence (I think) a lesser need to write it all down. I suspect that people who experiement with many, many varieties of ornamentals might need to keep more extensive listings just to keep straight how all the various cultivars and varieties perform.

Some people keep on-line logs, by the way.

Just my two cents worth. I'm looking forward to seeing the responses to your post and seeing what other people do.

Dawn

Since most of my stuff is container grown, photos are my record. I can add a paragraph or to each photo if needed under photo properties. Important photos are then cataloged and saved to disc.

I keep metal permanent tags on important plants with propagation or grafting dates, crosses, and other relevant info.

randy

Some years I keep a garden journal in my email that I can easily update, with pictures of certain plants or gardens. I mainly keep my records on a clipboard that I can carry outside with me. I keep track of when plants go in the ground, fertilizing dates, and the weather to some extent. But my best records are pictures of my gardens. I photograph my gardens on the 1st and the 15th of each month, at least. That way I can see how much each plant has grown over the past two weeks. It is also a visual record of what looks good growing together. I mainly plant tropicals, and the pictures help me in my garden design from year to year, as most stuff I grow has to come out of the ground before the first freeze and into the greenhouse for winter, then has to be replanted each spring. I keep drawings of my garden designs with the names of all the plants written down, in case name tags get lost. I also keep an ongoing inventory of all my plants. I love lists, so garden logs are just a part of my personality that I have little control of, :~)