Journaling Tip Tuesday: a garden journal

I have never had so many good ideas day after day as when I worked in the garden. ~John Erskine

Yes, it is January and most of us are still in a deep freeze. But what better way to warm up then dream about spring? I think that is why the seed catalogues arrive in our mailboxes in the dead of winter- to comfort us with the knowledge that soon the days will get longer, the sun warmer, and life will begin to emerge from the earth.

I am honored to have my journals and art mentioned in an article in the February 2009 issue of a UK magazine called Organic Garden and Home. The article Creating a Gardening Blog was written by Ann Somerset Miles. While her article focuses on how to create a garden blog she also writes about using your paper journal to augment the blog. Some examples include keeping a record of your seeds or diagramming out your garden.

Everyone’s needs for a garden journal is different. But here are a few ideas.

:: Use your journal now to dream up your garden. Create a diagram of your garden, deck, balcony.
Figure out what the conditions are and where. There’s no point in growing sunflowers in a spot
that gets no sun!

:: Put the month’s calendar on a page and plan out the planting, fertilizing, and weeding schedules

:: Glue in graph paper and plot out your future garden with colored pencils

:: Jot down the weeks when things pop up and bloom

:: Take photos with your camera and glue into your journal. A visual garden tour in a book!

:: Glue down pictures of flowers from magazines and catalogues of dream flowers and vegetables
that you may want to have one day

:: If you draw, use your plants as models in your journal. It will be such a personal record of your
garden

:: Glue in an envelope on one of your pages and stick seeds inside. Or place a dried and pressed
flower petal in a glassine envelope and attach that envelope to the page

:: Write down your observations of the plants growing. The wildlife that visits-bugs, butterflies,
hummingbirds. Write about the colors, the fragrances, the life in your garden

:: Write down the recipes used with the vegetables or herbs that you grew

:: And, of course, write down the mistakes and the plants that you don’t want to grow again

Journaling allows us to pause and slow down. Working the earth and gardening is the same way. When we garden we have to pay attention to the seasons because the sun and the clouds dictate our actions. The health of one single leaf is so important. Gardening and journaling requires us to be observers of life and the world. Keeping a garden journal is a nice way of integrating both the external and internal processes.

Experience the Seasons 5×7 inch blank journal
available at amanobooks.com
Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts. There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature- the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter. ~Rachel Carson
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Gardeners, like everyone else, live second by second and minute by minute. What we see at one particular moment is then and there before us. But there is a second way of seeing. Seeing with the eye of memory, not the eye of our anatomy, calls up days and seasons past and years gone by. ~ Allen Lacy

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Posted in journaling tips, mixed media journal

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 10:29 pm.