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Garden Planning
by Monica Resinger
The wisdom in keeping a garden journal

This is the time of year when the seed and plant catalogs come
pouring in and we can browse through them and start dreaming
up our gardens for the current year. A little planning will
help you get what you want out of your garden and save you
some time, money and frustration. A garden journal can be a
very valuable tool when planning your garden. You can keep
your garden journal in a spiral bound notebook or anything
that appeals to you. The bookstores have journals made
especially for your garden if you want to get fancy.

The first thing you want to do when planning your garden is to
figure out what you want out of it. A great way to do this is
to ask yourself some questions and take notes in your journal.
Some questions to ask yourself are:

~ Do you want fresh vegetables on the dinner table through
summer, or do you want more than that for canning or freezing?

~ Would you like some fresh herbs to compliment those
vegetables, make herbal teas or to give as gifts?

~ Do you want your yard to be colorful with seasonal flowers
and would you like extras for cutting and putting in vases to
decorate your home?

~ Do you want your flower beds to have flowers, vegetables,
herbs and fruit, or only flowers?

~ Is there some new plant you want to grow?

~ Where will you plant all that you want to grow?

~ What style of garden do you want (cottage, formal, informal,
etc.)?

~ Do you want to save a little money by starting seeds, or do
you want to save a little time by purchasing plants?

~ How many plants will you need for a certain area?

~ Do you have time to take care of all that you want out of
the garden?

A way to get ideas for your dream garden is to find pictures
in magazines or catalogs that appeal to you. You can paste
these pictures into your journal or keep them in a folder
nearby. When driving around town, look at others' yards and
try to remember what you liked about them. Take notes on what
appeals to you.

Once you know what you want by asking yourself the questions
above and taking note on what appeals to you, you get to make
the decisions of which plants to grow. This is where the
catalogs can be a valuable tool. You can also use gardening
books. The catalogs and gardening books will list plant names,
whether or not it will grow in your zone, plant size, plant
care and other information such as flower color.

Once you have planned which plants you are going to grow
where, you'll need to purchase the seeds or wait until the
nurseries start selling plants. You can also put a plant order
in through a catalog and they will ship them to you at your
planting date. This can be very convenient.

If you are going to start seeds, it's wise to figure out
starting dates and write them onto your calendar or into your
garden journal. To figure out when to start seeds, find out
the number of weeks for germination time on the seed packet
and count back that amount from your last frost date.

Your journal can be a valuable tool next year when making
plans. Don't limit yourself to only writing in your journal
now. You can also keep notes through the year on how well
certain varieties of plants did for you, new plants to try,
and anything else that will help you in your gardening
efforts. Writing and reading your journal adds another fun
dimension to gardening. Try it! I think you'll like it!