Evernote connects with the productivity tools you already use, so you can work your way. Learn more → Document scanning. Back up important documents to all your devices, and keep the information—not the clutter. Learn more → Web Clipper. Save web pages (without the ads) and mark them up with arrows, highlights, and text to. Keeping a diary of everything in the garden is both pleasurable and practical with new apps By Bunny Guiness and Bunny Guinness 09 April 2015. 07:00 am Record keeping is becoming easier and more. Or, you can make your gardening diary like a nature journal or scrapbook. That means you would find creative ways to illustrate your plants and garden maps, take pictures and organize them beautifully on a page with handwritten observations about what you see, enjoy or experience. You might include inspirational poems or quotes. Best apps to keep your gardening journal up to date. But an app called Evernote is increasingly being adapted for use by gardeners and is the system I have opted for. The basic app is free but.
You can try to keep it all in your head, but remembering what you planted, when you planted it, where you planted it, what happened to it, why it didn’t survive or how well it produced if it did survive are helpful details to know but often get lost if we don’t write them down. Taking inspiration from farmers and scrapbookers, let’s consider how you might go about documenting your season this year.
What to Track
With so much going on in the garden, this can be overwhelming. We’ve made a list below of things to consider recording. Peruse the list and see what strikes you. Likely, what items appeal to you to keep track of will relate to your personality type. An artistic person may be more interested in tracking stories and beauty, a practical person might prefer to track temperature and weather details.
Noting when things happened and what you did can be useful in observing trends, remembering what works and what doesn’t and planning the next year.
Receipt from purchase in case of return
Instructional tag and care info
Planting dates (species/variety name and location)
Soil test results
Soil conditions/preparation/amendments
Seed germination
Pest control methods
Irrigation/watering
Fertilization (when, how much, results)
Deer or other pest damage (date and details)
Weather damage
Fruit production
Flowering dates
Map of gardens or landscape
Weather conditions
Harvest results
Stories about things that have happened
Poems that inspire
Ideas – pictures and notes about gardens or plants you like
Drawings and illustrations
Photographs – Document the changes throughout the season by taking pictures of the garden once a week and capture the transformation. Use it for identification of plants or insects. Prompt your memory by taking pictures of the garden when it is in bloom so you recall what perennials are planted where.
The Method to Best Suit You
Using Evernote As A Journal
You can view this as simple record keeping. That means you’d methodically choose a regular time to simply note the information you decided was important for you to record in a spiral notebook, ledger, spreadsheet or calendar. Nothing fancy or artsy about it, and probably only take a short amount of time. This is the farmer’s approach.
Evernote Garden Journal Magazine
Or, you can make your gardening diary like a nature journal or scrapbook. That means you would find creative ways to illustrate your plants and garden maps, take pictures and organize them beautifully on a page with handwritten observations about what you see, enjoy or experience. You might include inspirational poems or quotes. This option would take more time and might involve making time to sit in your garden and reflect. This is an artist, nature journalist or scrapbooker’s approach.
Evernote Daily Journal Template
A technologically oriented gardener might enjoy using one of the latest apps for their phone, tablet or computer. Mémoires is a great journaling option that gardeners can adapt for gardening; it allows photos, notes, geolocation and weather conditions. Making a digital recording is also an inventive option available to modern gardeners. Phones now have that capability that makes note recording quite simple. Evernote.com is a versatile organization app that can be useful for gardeners, too. FieldNotesLT is another note-taking tool for iPhone/iPad that allows you to record all your information in a geo-referenced format using GPS.
There’s a great pre-formatted gardening journal available to print out free at http://www.arbico-organics.com/category/garden-journal.
Evernote Journal App
Or, simply purchase a blank journal and adding any information that suits you. Whatever you do, any combination of these options will be beneficial and you won’t regret anything you do to remember your growing season.