Joe and I are going into our second spring since owning our home, and this year I decided to start keeping a garden journal.
I sat down a few evenings ago and came up with a list of things that I'd like to keep track of throughout the growing months. Then I made a rough draft of the categories that would help keep me on track-- I didn't want it to be just another unorganized notebook. I'm pretty awesome at keeping jumbled notebooks...I'm one of those people who just opens it to some random page and starts writing. Being unorganized is one of my worst habits!
Anyway. After a couple hours of planning, I made a list of what I needed from the store and went shopping when I got off work. PS: it helps to come up with your color choices before you head to the store.
What you'll need:
- 3 ring binder
- lined paper
- graph paper for plans and drawings
- plastic sleeves for articles & clippings
- magazines to gather photos & ideas from
- decorative paper to divide journal into sections
- pouch to keep supplies in
- pens, markers, scissors, tape (i'm going to get cuter tape from etsy), glue stick, etc.
- hole punch (a 3-ring punch will save you lots of time...i didn't want to buy one, though.)
Total cost: $28, although you can make yours for less. I gathered everything I needed from Target and Archivers. When I searched "garden journal", I saw directions for one that said it would cost $60...not really sure what all that money went towards, but I'm pretty happy with my total cost of $28. I think I could have spent only $20 if I had the tape, glue and ink pads already.
Total time: I spent about 2 hours shopping (i like to look at everything) and then about 3.5 hours assembling, although you could spend less. It all depends on how much you want to get your craft on...and how many photos you take and edit if you blog.
I cut my decorative paper into strips to add a little visual interest to each section. I could have saved a lot of time and some money by just using the actual piece of decorative paper, but I didn't want the journal to feel too chaotic so I decided to use thin strips on blank paper.
Once I had all my strips glued in place, I used my Dymo printer to make section titles. I ended up putting November-March in one section since gardening in Wisconsin is pretty much at a stand still during those months.
In addition to monthly categories, I came up with about 5 others as well so I could keep everything sorted out.
A now that it's finished, I can start keeping notes and ideas! I'm pretty excited to have something like this to keep me organized, and it will be a lot of fun to look back at throughout the coming years. I will most likely use the same journal until it is completely full and just keep adding paper to the sections as I need it.
In case you are interested, here are the categories I included, although I'm sure I will think of more as time goes on:
- each month has it's own section, other than the winter months
- plants and flowers: i'll keep an ongoing list of plants that i see & like.
- inspiration: i will keep my clippings in plastic sleeves in this section.
- care and keeping: fertilizing times, what works/what doesn't, problems that arise.
- plans and ideas: i put my graph paper in this section. i'll draw my sculpture and bed plans here.
- etc.
And that's how I spent my Friday morning. What are your plans for the weekend? Joe is getting off work in about 20 minutes, but I'm not sure what we'll do yet. It's really windy outside and I think it's only about 45 degrees- no fun for outdoor stuff. Ah well, it's a good day to start filling my journal. :)
I'm off work still, but feeling a lot better.
So since I currently feel like I have all the time in the world, sitting here resting up, I suppose I'll show you the project that I've been working on.
It's not all that exciting in photo-form. Much better in person. And better still when more stuff starts blooming...
2 weeks ago I started clearing a path through one of the gardens. I took this photo after I already started, so it isn't a true "before" photo, but it gives a general idea...
Tons of weeds were pulled (2 wheelbarrows worth) and I ripped out the daisies, which was highly gratifying. I don't think I've mentioned how much I dislike daisies. Joe doesn't like them either. Buuuut both of our moms love them & it wasn't until after I ripped them out that I remembered this. Oh, don't worry mom- there will still be plenty to give you next spring I'm sure.
Moving along...the lilac bush was cut back & a wooden border was placed (dumpster dive score!).
A few plants were added (like I needed more...)
And multiple strolls have been taken.
This is the view to the right of the path:
It's hard to see, but today I spied a new hydrangea (in the middle) which is different than the Annabelles that seem to be practically taking over the property. It was a nice change.
I added a few little thrift store/rummage finds and moved some railroad ties to create borders.
I thought that a small firewood pile would make for a nice addition to the path as well, especially since the fire pit is just to the left of the area.
And we recently moved our trailers to the back and Joe and my dad & brother split fire wood for 4 hours over Memorial Day weekend. One of the walls of wood is seen to the far right.
Joe and I have a master plan (although not yet drawn out) for the path to extend to the very back of the yard (which you can't really see in the photo above) between the 2 bordering rows of pine trees. We hope to have this finished in 2-3 years. We'd like to have a pretty serious bird sanctuary within 5 years, and the path will lead around the entire perimeter, complete with a couple of bird watching huts and lots of benches. I'm not quite sure when I'll have the time to maintain such a huge garden, but we plan on using a lot of low-maintenance plants and to add multiple rock gardens.
And since I haven't shown you enough photos in one post, here's another. This demonstrates just how over-grown the gardens are. We wanted to live here during an entire grow season (rather than just half, like last year) to see what we were going to be able to work with. Next summer this garden will be heavily divided and we will most likely sell about 1/4 of it to buy some plants that are more of our taste.
So anyway, that's all. Hope your day is going well. For now I'm off to take a snooze.
Hi friends!
My Bee Balm poked through last week! I didn't even know that we had these flowers, because they were gone by the time we bought our house in August.
They are my favorite flower in bloom right now. I have never seen Bee Balm before, and I didn't even know what it was. I love the fact that they look like little fire crackers! I may have to cut some and bring them inside.
So guess what? I have 3 days off in a row! Today I had big plans to get out in the garden by 7 and keep going on a project that I'm making great headway on. Well, I woke up at about midnight (just a leeetle bit earlier than I anticipated) and couldn't sleep the rest of the night. Aching knees, followed by a sore throat, scratchy respiratory and an eye infection. The eye issues I can live with, it's kind of a normal thing in my life. But I couldn't find any Ibuprofen and that's what kept me up. Damn my knees, I shouldn't have been so hard on them yesterday. Ugh, so I finally fell asleep at about 6 this morning and just got up at 10. I'm still not sure how I'm feeling, but it's definitely a little bit better. And the sunshine is calling my name.Anyway, if things don't go downhill, I plan on going home for a couple of days. Home as in Illinois. We'll see. I'm pretty excited. :)So back to this garden thing. Being the thinker that I am (which is mostly provided by my long drives to and from work) I've decided that I should really just focus on being outside in the summer and inside in the winter. What I mean by that is that I don't care if the trim in the living room gets painted or if the wall paper in the hallway gets torn down. I will save that for winter and rainy days. For now I need to spend as much time outside as possible. I think I'll be happier that way.I have a lot of ideas for the gardens. Mostly expansion projects. Documentation to come, of course. Okay off I go, I'm heading to the 50% off sale at the hardware store. For plants and garden stuff. :)
I found a few more mushrooms this morning.
Not quite as many as last time, but the big one in this photo is 7"so that's cool.I have to leave for work in about an hour, otherwise I'd go to the park and look for some. Instead I will work on a couple of painting projects and get ready for the day.
Yesterday I went plant shopping. I had a pretty limited budget so I only bought about 1/6 of what I plan on getting. I'm waiting for local plant sales and I also want to go here and here. Cost of plants: $50.
The idea was to start filling the containers that I've been collecting for the past year. Most of these were thrift & rummage finds, but a few were purchased from big box stores. $55 total.
Most of them will be kept on the back deck. I would have liked to sit on the deck while I planted these, but it was rainy, breezy and cool, so I hung out in the garage.
I used crushed cans and packing peanuts as filler for the bottom half of the containers. This makes it so they aren't as heavy and also uses less potting soil. Even with this approach I still ran out of soil, but that's okay because I ran out of plants too. I decided to use some of the flowers in the yard since there are 3 large areas I would like to fill within the next couple weeks. Now I just need my container plants to grow and fill out the pots.
I saved all of the small containers that the plants came in because I plan on using them in my eventual Garden Room over the winter. Progress has been made on the room, but I can't show photos till I'm further along. It's going to be my late summer/early fall project. My parents helped get the room to where it is right now, but I just have to find the right time to finish it now. The goal is to do it as cheaply as possible and so far it's going really well. I'm sure that the grow lights will cost more than everything else combined, but that's okay...it will be nice to escape to the room during our long, Wisconsin winters. I'm also going to put some lounge seating in there so it will be a cool place to hang out with friends. If you haven't noticed, I like to have multiple options for places to chill. That way I don't get as bored.
+++++
I was going to work on the fire pit today but the weather isn't cooperating. So instead I'm going to clean underneath the bathroom sinks and clean the oven. I may start a few painting projects as well- there is never a shortage of those...
Oh yeah- today is my tenth day without mid-day coffee. It's going MUCH better than it did last spring. By cutting back my coffee intake, it will save about $16 a month and it also saves me about 10 minutes each workday morning. That's an hour a week! I'd say that lack of hassle also saves me a headache, but that would be lying. Those are being lovingly provided by the lack of caffeine. I think I may give in today though since it's only 11:45 AM and I'm feeling like the day is starting to trudge along. Off I go.
