I make shorthand notes on my month at a glance calendar and lots of pictures. That's about the extent of my journaling. Keep all the calendars and can go back to each year and compare notes.

I"m really, really going to try to journal next year. We should remind each other along the way.

What sort of things do you journal...or would you journal if you journaled?

I use excel spreadsheets. I start out the prior year and draw up my plot layout for my 21 raised beds and reference the current year's layout and prior year's layout in an effort to rotate as much as possible. I have one spreadsheet that shows all beds at one glance with just summary information about what goes where. Then I have a detailed worksheet for each bed showing varieties, quantities, spacing, and planned timing for both spring and fall plantings.

Then based on the plot layout I put together my 'planting plan' that lists everything by variety. What I need to start indoors, how many, and when as well as expected time to harden off and plant out. What I need to direct seed, how much, where and when.

I also keep track of the germination time and percentages, pot up dates, actual plant out date, seed source and purchase year as well as notes of what did well, what did not and why, pests or disease issues, etc.

Another thing I keep in a spreadsheet from year to year is what seeds I have in stock and approximately how many so I can reference that in the winter when ordering seeds.

For tracking harvest, I have a 'harvest template' that I use for each variety that lists date, # harvested, weight, and then YTD totals for count and weight. For some things I am pretty good about filling this out but on other things not so much. For instance, Obviously I don't count beans or cherry tomatoes but I do try to weigh them after each harvest.

I started in mid Jan when i started seeds, and did excellently...until the first of Feb. After that it was hit or miss, updates every few weeks. By April I had completely abandoned any attempt. Oh well, next year.

I had every opportunity to do it right as far as my setup papers etc but the binder is out of sight out of mind. Most days I would come in from the garden shower eat go to bed. I want to keep better track of what gets planted when and where and how it does but gardening is so busy.

I start a new word processor document, in a gardennotes folder, every year. Then I do entries with the date they are made within the document. This allows me to easily search for anything, and to ramble on my observations as I please. This was a typical year. I started out strong, keeping lots of notes, especially of when I started and planted things. But by the middle of July, my notes become sporadic. About September I start taking better notes again.

The middle of July we're all suffering burnout! I tried putting daily notes on my calendar program, but that only lasted about a week. I told myself I was going to track first blooms/fruit/harvest. NOT. Of course DH likes to harvest, so often I don't know what tomato he brought in. I write the name on ones I want to taste. I may try something like your document, George. I downloaded an ap last year, but it was not user friendly. Then I started a database, which I thought I would work on this winter. The computer crashed. I keep copies of my spread sheet on google drive. At least I won't lose that.

I keep keep planning on journaling, but it has yet to happen. It would sure help when my plant labels disappear. I'm still getting tomatoes daily with no idea what the name is. Same with my peppers!

Not going to. I've been awful at journaling, diary-ing, note taking ,etc, my entire life. No reason to think I'm going to change that now. All I've got is a short list of what I grew this year, and if it's a yay/nay/maybe for next year, and a list of want-to-trys.

I'm with you Rebecca. I plant what I want to, when I want to and enjoy the ride. I normally keep track of the number of jars I can, but this year was a low canning year and I didn't even keep track of that. I am keeping track of the weight of Seminole pumpkin, but I have about 3 dozen harvested and still outdoors that I need to wipe down and weigh tomorrow and add to my total. Then I need to find a place to put them before cold weather comes and of course give more away. Carol

I did a pretty good job of journaling in the 1980s and 1990s, but not so much since then. I think I kept pretty good records for the first 2 or 3 years we lived here in OK, but just got too busy after that. I don't even try to keep track of things on paper or computer or with a camera.

I simply make a plan in my head (my plan is simple: grow everything and grow too much of it all), follow my plan, and reap the harvest.

I always do start out the canning season with a canning log, keeping track of each batch canned by batch number, type of product canned, date and the number of jars in the batch. That works for a while, but inevitably I get too busy canning and ditch the canning journal at some point....usually in June. I've never bothered keeping records of what I dehydrate, ferment or freeze.

I measure the garden year as a success or a lack of success by how much produce we've eaten fresh, by how much I've canned, by how many freezers we've filled up, how many potatoes, onions, winter squash, etc. sit in the cool, dark back corners of the under-the-stairs pantry, etc. I don't mean that I have a count of those items, but rather that I simply know if we have a little, a middling amount or a lot. Most years are massive successes. Last year with its nearly 80" of rain was not so great, and 2011 with the exceptional drought and heat wasn't either, but in every other year, we've raised enough produce and preserved enough of it so that we rarely buy produce at the grocery store, other than things we cannot grow here---like lettuce in July-August, for example. This year? I canned about 500 jars of stuff, filled up two freezers and have a full pantry, so it ranks as a success whether I kept any written records of the year or not.

It mostly comes down to time. Any time spent writing things down or logging them on a computer, taking photos, etc. is time taken away from the garden. I'd rather spend time in the garden or in the kitchen preparing the produce for meals or preserving it, so everything else like journaling falls by the wayside.

I used to plan my garden out on paper too....drawing little graphs of every raised bed and meticulously planning out the spacing prior to planting. Ha! That fell by the wayside by the mid-2000s.

The weather varies so much here from year to year that it is hard to find consistency in when to plant or how much to plant because you have to be able to go with the flow and adapt to whatever weather you have, so I didn't find journaling all that helpful when I did it because one year we might have the last freeze in early February and another year we might be plagued by late freezes through the first week in May, so it is hard to look at years' worth of previous journals and find any consistency to use as a guide. It took me a few years of living here and gardening here in OK to learn that. No two years are ever the same. It keeps life interesting, even unjournaled.

I do my garden planning at work so I am getting paid for it :)