WSU Master Gardeners Corner

Hmmm. Can’t remember when you transplanted those tomatoes outside or how early you planted those yummy peas? If only you had kept a garden journal you would have all that information at hand.

Several garden journals are available in bookstores. In them you write the important gardening details you want to remember. You can buy a journal or record information on a handy wall calendar to refer to each year. My journal is for three years. How interesting it is to compare the results of the different techniques I used from year to year. One year I transplanted tomatoes to the garden in early June and they grew well. The next year, it was too wet to garden in June so the tomatoes weren’t transplanted until July. But I wouldn’t have recalled that without having written it in my garden journal.

A good garden journal has a graph for you to plot out your flowerbeds, vegetable garden, where your trees are located, what you planted and where. Knowing where you bought certain cultivars, what they cost and how they grew (or didn’t grow) in the location planted is fun to track. Write down what produced well or what was a waste of space.

Catalogs can be wonderful to look at with their glossy pages, but all those beautiful flowers don’t do well in all areas and your journal will help you remember what did well and what died or just ‘vegetated’.

Keep pruning information, make a plant wish list, when did you spray for what, your journal will tell you. Take pictures and put them in your journal. They will remind you better than notes what a flowerbed looked like or how well that special flower grew.

You don’t have to get fancy. This year try keeping a journal. You’ll be glad you did.

Do you have questions for WSU Master Gardeners? We will try to answer as many questions in future articles as possible. E-mail: twietl@co.wahk-iakum.wa.us Or call: 795-3278.