Reading other people's garden planners!

[veggiechicken]

Amongst the charity books for sale in Wilko's, I found a Garden Planner, part completed - so I had to buy it! Its strange, reading someone else's diary - a bit embarrassing but also, quite reassuring to know that other people are as bad as me at keeping up with the entries!!
The first entry is Feb 10, 2001. Planted 3 Moneymaker and 3 gardener's Delight into pots and put on kitchen window sill.
NB Gardener's delight through Feb 18 Moneymaker - Failed.

Feb 24 Cut lawn.
Planted - Sweet peas (12/3)
Dahlias (10/3)
Onion Bed Champion (13/3)
White Lisbon
Petunias (13/3)
French Marigold (10/3)

.............He then orders 15 bags of Top soil and the Sales Receipt is stapled in the diary - £27 - and this tells me the name of the gentleman whose diary this is and his address - and that Eddie Morgan took 9 bags.

There are a couple of entries in March, one in June........then nothing until 2002 when he records March and April, once in September and then its 2003!!
There's a plan of his plot............and nothing more until 2006.
A few entries in 2007 and 2008, nothing in 2009.
2010 he starts sticking seed packets in the book - Gardener's Delight, Rudbeckia, Golden Sunrise tomatoes and naughty Marietta marigold.
2011 - Snapper tomato, dahlia, cosmos and petunia seed packets
2012 - he's sowing 6 types of tomato
2013 - there's a list of people's names and numbers - maybe how many tomato plants they had from him?

On loose pieces of paper there are more lists of people and tomato plants and a local church is mentioned.

In my imagination, Mr Y has a big garden where he grows potatoes, beans, tomatoes and lots of flowers. He sells his spare tomato plants to raise money for the church restoration fund.

I like Mr Y, I hope he's still growing tomatoes.

It made me wonder what anyone would make of my "diaries" and the scrappy notes I make when I remember.
How about you? Are you a conscientious recorder? You can tell us - we promise not to laugh.

[Thelma Sanders]

I usually start the year recording everything, but by June or July, I'm so over it

[SarrissUK]

I would love to be a diary kind of person, and goodness knows I've bought enough calendars for this purpose, but I always forget. I suppose I just dont care much about what I sowed when. I'm more of an intuitive gardener. Come to think of it, these days I tend to refer back to pictures on my phone, and that's as good as it gets for me!

[veggiechicken]

I'm a bit like Mr Y. I start the year with good intentions but they fade away in March/April. Then I have a little flurry of activity about June and again in September. It'll soon be time to put pen to paper again.

[chillithyme]

I make notes ,doodles, plans and to do lists. I write more in the colder months than in the summer, and I don't follow anything that i've written down

[Small pumpkin]

I get a diary every year for my garden. At the start of season I record everything. By this time of year I’m going back through the what I did today thread to copy it into my diary . I’m starting to wonder why I bother . The early seed sowing records I do look back on from time to time. But on the whole it’s a pointless exercise.

[Bren In Pots]

Mine's a A5 ring binder, its got my scribbled planting plans of my beds followed by what I've sown, when, where, and sprouting times. planting out and first harvested. I've been doing this since 2010 I tend to forget to add some details but it gives me an idea of what to sow each year and how it does.

[1Bee]

That's a lovely post, VC, thanks for sharing it.

You only have to look at the "What I did today" thread to see how seasonal my recording is! I start off noting everything (I use a spreadsheet, not because that's 'better' but because that's what I find easy to use) and by about now I'm grunting, "weeded. watered. picked stuff".

I have started noting key dates, though, so I know when I planted out potatoes, when I harvested them etc. I have a crappy memory, so I find it useful for spring when I'm always going, "Whut? When do I do this?!"

[elsie-scot]

My uncle has kept diaries for decades and he mostly records weather and garden stuff. We once read his reports for big family dates and it’s quite comical how a birth, wedding might get two words in the entry.
I’ll need to sneak a good read as they turned 2 acre field into a fantastic wood, veg garden, fruit and flowers about 50 years ago.

[rary]

I start with the intention of recording weather, seed sowing and transplanting and I must start recording for at least a day, then I forget where I put the note book
But wait till next year

[Chestnut]

I like to record what I harvest, so every crop gets weighed in as it gets to the kitchen.
Doesn’t take account of the stuff I give away before I get home, but that’s by the by.

I also like to plan in the winter months, and put seeds ready in sowing order. Then by about mid April it’s all gone to pot.

One of my allotment neighbours is much more enthusiastic about recording stuff than I am, and likes to record stuff on a ‘per plant’ basis with weights and measurements of various things. There’s no way I could ever be that organised, but the scientist in me can see the value of studying properly what actually does and doesn’t work ;-)

[Stan79]

For the first couple of years I recorded everything on a spreadsheet as I’m used to using them for work.

I also used the Sutton’s garden planner.

That’s all gone out the window now. This year I planted what we like to eat and what’s worked well in the past and then my wife bought a load of plants from some plant sales so I had to find space to cram them in.

Planning is good but with the weather we have, I find I have to just wait until it feels right to plant stuff.

[weegie]

I keep a record of veg varieties and dates of sowing and/or planting, and first harvest, plus the occasional comment. It helps me plan and acts as a reminder for the following year. I don't bother weighing or counting crops, or noting the weather, though my father kept met records obsessively for many years!

[bikermike]

I lost 3 years notes. Very annoying

[veggiechicken]

Maybe they'll turn up in a charity shop!!