Get Growing: Grab a notebook & garden
A rabbit-chewed sketchbook, a day planner, sheets of paper, pick a system that works for you!
Considering a garden but don’t know where to start? Get a notebook. Seriously. Your garden notebook or journal will:
Help you get organized. Not sure what to grow? Make a list of what you want to eat, and then use the Planning Guide for Home Gardening in Alabama to figure out when to plant what you want to grow. (Some things grow better in the fall than the summer.)
Help you plan your garden. If you’re a visual person, draw your garden in your notebook. Make it as basic or detailed as you want.
Help you become a better gardener. Use your notebook to keep track of what grew well, what didn’t survive, insights, problems, bugs you identify. Each year look over the previous year’s notebook. You’ll learn a lot about your garden and your growing garden skills.
Help you with garden rotations. As much as possible, you don’t want to put plants from the same plant family in the same place year after year. (It’s not great for the soil and it’s like creating an all you can eat buffet for pests & disease.) Whether you make a list or draw a picture, you’ll know what you planted and where you planted it.
If you have moved beyond pen & paper, great! Whether it’s sheets of paper stapled together, a wall calendar, blank notebook, google doc or garden planning app, pick the system that works best for you. Note programs like Evernote or Google Keep allow you to save pictures, notes and lists while you’re in the garden.
Now you have a place to start. Go forth & garden! If you have a favorite program or system for keeping track of your garden, put it in the comments.
You don’t have to be an artist to draw your garden plans. Maybe it would help to be a little more neat.