Gardening 101: The Garden Diary (Secrets to Success Revealed)
Do you want a super-productive garden that gets better every year? Do you want to lose weight, rein in you budget, accomplish your goals, find your voice, decrease stress, clarify your values and gain insight into your behavior? Or simply, Increase Your Vegetable Garden Harvest? There is one simple trick, practiced by some of the most accomplished people in the history of time, that has helped countless millions accomplish their goals. It’s easy. Inexpensive. And tremendously powerful (not hyperbole)! What is it? Read On! But first, a Growth Tip ….
GROWTH TIP:
As humans, we are prone to forget pain. It fades over time. Doctors used to try to scare us into better health habits, but it didn’t work (we know we should stop smoking, exercise more, and watch our diet). Change is hard. Right? How many of us have followed through with our New Year’s resolutions past February? We all mean well. We try really hard (trust me, I’m with you friends). But change is hard. We are creatures of habit and often find ourselves slipping back into old behaviors, despite our resolve and determination. We need help changing. That’s one of the reasons AA and other support groups work, while “white knuckling it” on our own doesn’t. We need accountability, awareness, and support. You can’t change if the goal is in the back of your mind. It needs to be front and center. What powerful tool can keep your goals front and center, INCREASE YOUR HARVEST, and change your habits? Writing. Journaling. Simply writing it down. Track it. Log it. Journal it. Record your thoughts, feelings, goals, and observations with brutal honesty, and I guarantee (not money-back mind you … you haven’t given me any) you will make progress personally as well as in your garden! Let’s learn more …
And if you are new to gardening, please scroll to the end to get my Newbie Tips, before moving on to some other website (See I know you … I’m a psychologist after all!!!!). And don’t forget to look at my journaling for improved mental health section towards the end.
Like to avoid these type of problems, that will ravage your tomato plants leaving you with only bacon and lettuce on your BLT’s? Me too? What to do? JOURNAL! Read on, my friend.
Hall of Fame, One-Named Greats Who Have Journaled
Ok. If you are still reading (and you want a better life as well as a better garden), you’d like to get down to business. What do I journal about and how will it increase my garden yield. Hold on one more second. Before getting into specifics, let me provide a little context, and authority, by introducing you to the Pantheon of One-Named Greats who have journaled. Buckle up. Here we go: da Vinci, Beethoven, Darwin, Churchill, Twain, Edison, Thoreau, Patton, Mandela, Emerson, Hemingway, Franklin, Newton (Sir), Picasso, Rockefeller, Jefferson, and Einstein. Pretty impressive, right? Let’s add a few more two-named wonders: Anne Frank, Lewis Carroll, Marco Polo (he of swimming pool fame … Marco? Polo! …), Lewis and Clark, and Marie Curie. And finally a few modern journal aficionados: Oprah Winfrey, Larry David, Captain Kirk, Jennifer Aston, Ema Watson, Brett Eldredge and , of course, the Garden Shrink!
How did I get such beautiful produce? With a green thumb (no such thing; see previous blog)? No! Through trial and error (mostly error), and journaling/learning from my mastakes … I mean mistakes.
WHY JOURNAL? I just want more cucumbers not a Pulitzer Prize!
Why? Because I said so? Nope. I’ve been gardening for 19 years, and starting a garden journal is one the best pieces of advice I’ve ever gotten. I can’t tell you how many times my journals have saved me heartache. Early in the season, when plant growth is as slow as molasses and less tasty, and garden attention is low, I often spend time rereading my journals; reminiscing, celebrating, dreaming, and most importantly, remembering. Armed with my acquired but forgotten know-how, I am prepared for the impending work with, and against, Mother Nature. And she will arrive. With all her beauty and fury. I don’t know how many times I’ve encountered garden problems, only to read my old logs and discover, You had this same issues 3 years ago, doe-doe! It reassures me and reminds me of the fix. The cucumber beetles come mid-July, and here’s what controlled them. The yellowing leaves at the base of your tomato plant was caused by too much water … stop watering so much. The soft brown spots on your bell peppers (blossom end rot) were caused by calcium deficit. Add bone meal. All this to say, remembering pain, prevents it. And this is Why we journal. Because we want to learn from experience and not repeat mistakes. To not learn from mistakes is the tongue-in-cheek definition of insanity (doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results). And we don’t want that, do we?
IT SOUNDS DAUNTING ... I JUST WANT TO HAVE FUN.
Fun? I’m 100% with you. But having your tomato or cucumber plant die mid-season is not fun. And both of these have happened to me. Definitely, not fun! But journaling is easy. In fact, truth be told, we journal all day long using different terms. But it is journaling none-the-less. Examples? How about: ledgers, logs, reminders, memoirs, day-books and planners, step and exercise counters, statements, accounts, registries, taking ‘minutes’ at meetings, and archives. Journaling, recording and chronicling information is so commonplace, we don’t even think about it. I think the word journal tends to be equated with “diary” and many of us are not diary-people. Let that notion go and use one of the words above to get started.
So, where to begin? Record anything you want. But I would start with the basics: Problems and Successes. Use your phone, tablet, or laptop; or good old fashion pen and paper (I still do this) to record the good, the bad, and the ugly gardening highlights. The good … to celebrate. The Bad? To avoid pain and celebrate more next year.
How has journaling helped me? It reminds me that problems with insects and disease tend to occur year after year, around the same time of the season (cutworms and flea beetles early in my growing season; Asiatic and cucumber beetles and cabbage worms mid-season; and powdery mildew late season). And it reminds me of the fixes – what I did that helped overcome these annual challenges. My memory is pretty good. But rereading my journals reminds me how much I forget. And that forgotten knowledge helps me nip problems in the bud, before they get established in my garden, which leads to happier, more productive plants. And if the plants are happy. Daddy is happy.
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"REMEMBERING PAIN ... PREVENTS IT"
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TOP SUGGESTIONS?
Here’s where I’d start:
- Your seed-starting and transplant date. This will give you a general idea of when to expect full-grown veggies.
- The names of your vegetables. You may grow the same type year after year, which is great. But I tend to experiment and plant different varieties. Recording “who” and “where” helps me track which type is most productive.
- Any problems you encounter: damage to plants from insets, disease, and furry animals (aren’t they cute??? NOT!). And more importantly, the solutions that worked controlling damage from insects, disease, and animals.
- The number of cucumbers (fill in the blank with your favorites) you harvest. Why? It gives you a general idea from year to year what is happening in your garden. If one year you harvest 80 cucumbers and the next you only get 30, then something happened worth noting. Perhaps there is a nutrient deficit or insect problem because you planted in the same spot. Or perhaps you rotated your crops as recommended, but your new spot in the garden gets less sunlight.
- Anything else under the sun or moon. Have fun with it. Do as much or as little as you want. I’ve tracked rainfall and air temperature (like Thomas Jefferson), the time of sunrise and sunset throughout the season, and weighed each and every tomato by type (over 600) to determine which varieties produced best in my garden (definitely overkill and not for the faint of heart). As you can probably tell, I’m a bit of a numbers nerd (maybe I should have gone into accounting or engineering instead of psychology?). I can tell you how much sunlight we lose on a daily basis as summer morphs into fall. As an aside, in MA, where I live, the total amount of sunlight in June is about 6 hours more than in December. No wonder there is so much Seasonal Affective Disorder. Urghhh. Why did I leave FL?
But this and other recorded information is invaluable. Weighing all my tomatoes by type is a lot of work (Ok, you’re right, too much work), but now I have that information for as long as I live (for example, my tomato plants average 20-30 fruit and 10-12lbs per plant). I know which plant varieties matured the fastest, and which ones were more prone to our garden enemies — pestilence and pandemics (remember, while gardening is a love affair, it is also warfare). I know that a barrier, like the cardboard interior of a toilet paper role, can protect my baby seedlings from cutworms, who do just that; come out at night and cut right through stems at the base of the plant. I know that being proactive and spraying some of my plants with an organic fungicide, decreases the chances of Septoria leaf spot (Also, we must keep our plants 6 feet apart and encourage social distancing). And many other helpful tidbits learned through blood, sweat, and tears.
But that’s me. The numbers nerd (the GardenNerd … new blog idea?). You can record whatever strikes your fancy. Based on your time, interest, and personality. But whatever you record, it will increase your awareness (a key to any kind of growth), which in turn, will increase your effectiveness and overall harvest. Because knowledge is power. And ignorance is bliss? Nope. Not when it comes to gardening. Ignorance is pain. So record it. Remember it. And sin no more.
Relevance to journaling? Not really. But it is summer. And here in MA we are on schedule to have the wettest July on record going back to the 1800’s. So, I’ll note this in my journal! And besides, I just like the picture of home (St. Pete Beach) …
Dr. Dave's Jounaling Fun Facts
Here are a few fun/helpful facts I’ve found reviewing my journals:
- March 2010 set the record for the most rain in this month going back to the 1800’s, and the spring of 2010 was the warmest on record.
- Purple leaves on tomato seedlings are common and is often a result of temperature fluctuations.
- A 6-pack of Jalapeno peppers at my local supermarket in 2010 cost $1.99.
- In 2010 (a good year!), I harvested 251.46 lbs of tomatoes and each plant averaged 11.43 lbs of produce. At $2.99/lb. that year, I harvested $751.87 worth of tomatoes for the cost of seeds, which was probably around $20.
- A heating pad makes a great Jerry-rig for a heating mat, to start peppers indoors (they germinate at 80-85 degrees F).
- In 2009 I averaged 11.5 yellow squash per plant.
- Cutting the top leaves/stems from your basil plants will cause them to become more productive and bushier (for every cut, two new branches will sprout). And, you can propagate new basil plants by taking a cutting, putting it in water, and waiting about 2 weeks for new roots to develop)
- Pyrethrin (an organic insecticide) at 2 teaspoons per 1/2 gallon of water will kill cucumber beetles.
- Lots of lady bugs and ants (the good guys) on plants (yes it rhymes) is a sign of an aphid infestation (the bad guys).
- The high temperature on 7/22/11 was 103 degrees (highly unusual for MA).
- In 2011, I averaged 36 tomatoes on each of my Celebrity plants.
- In 2006, I didn’t harvest my first zucchini until August 1st (3 wks later than my average pick date).
This is just a sampling of random information that I’ve chronicled. Some of it is just fun. Some of it is essential information to help me increase my yield this year, and for years to come.
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"I've been gardening 19 years and starting a garden journal is one of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten."
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Graduate Level Advice for Journaling
Ok, so you don’t get graduate credit for the following, but if I was going to start over with my journaling, here’s a couple of things I would do differently.
- When you record a significant finding (problem and solution), record it in your journal, but also record it in a separate part of your journal for easy reference. Reading tons of journal entries can be fun and a trip down memory lane, but if you need specific information to solve a problem, spending 3 hours to find it, is less fun.
- Like a scientist, make hypotheses/ask questions and record the outcome in a separate part of the journal for reference. For example, “I wonder which part of the garden will produce more tomatoes?” This will help you compare outcomes and for example, identify “hot spots” that are super-productive in your garden. Again, it can be daunting to review 100’s of journals entries to find important facts.
- Summarize results in a separate part of the journal (for the same reason).
- At the end of the season, while everything is still fresh in your mind, write and plan how you want to adapt and change gardening strategies for next year. As mentioned we/me are prone to forget … write it down to decrease pain, and increase your harvest.
Growth, Mental Health, and Journaling ...
Consistent with my logo — “all things gardening with a psychological twist”– I want to offer a few words of psychological wisdom about journaling as a general exercise/practice in one’s daily life. If you don’t want to “grow” emotionally, feel free to skip this section (see how I used reverse psychology … haha). Writing about your goals, or feelings, or observations can be extremely valuable. Journaling increases your awareness and increases your chances of making the changes that you want to make. The key to behavior change is awareness. If we are aware, we can respond based on our values, and not simply react (are you with me?). We are prone and programmed to go on automatic pilot, which conserves energy and allows us to make choices based on past experiences. This can be good. We don’t want to approach every situation as if it is new or novel. It would take an incredible amount of brain power and decrease our effectiveness. We need to conserve out brain power for those things that really matter. But this works against us when we want to change. Auto-pilot leads us to the same frustrating outcome over and over again. That’s where journaling comes in. It takes us off autopilot and forces us to pay attention. And when we are aware and attending to our surroundings, we can choose to change. I mentioned several areas people often want to change, and one of them is spending. If you were to write down every single expenditure, down to the penny, you would likely find it difficult to buy unneeded items. Why? Because writing it down, makes us aware (breaks through our denial), and it makes us accountable.
So, writing it down can help change bad habits. Are there other benefits? You betcha there are (I’m not from North Dakota, but I have similar ancestry). Journaling about your feelings, thoughts, life, past life, and goals can help you change into the person you long-to-be. It brings important things from the back of our minds to the front of our minds. And when in front, we can choose and change. It’s a powerful tool to accomplish goals, discover your “voice,” decrease stress, and to resolve issues such as trauma. Some of the “Greats” in our world have used it to become more “great.” Maybe you can be the next Einstein. Or da Vinci. Or Garden Shrink (aka, Dr. Dave). Who knows. But if these accomplished individuals did it … maybe we should too?
NEWBIE TIP:
Don’t let all the details and jargon deter or scare you. Gardening is simple. It is also complex and an on-going battle. But that’s what makes it fun. It feeds your family and your heart! I’ve acquired knowledge through trial and error, talking with other gardeners (we love to talk to each other and anyone else who will listen) and through tons of reading, over the past 19 years. Start slow. Chances are, if you simply put some seeds in good soil, keep the weeds down and the watering up, you will enjoy a harvest in 3-4 months. And while you are at it, record it! Wisdom comes from experience, and mistakes. Let your experience inform you. Let it teach you. Let it lead you to a greater harvest and a life that is richer, more meaningful, and more in line with your values. Happy gardening. Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?
Me on the Cape during a Nor’easter in September with 60 mph winds. Great gift (Bed and Breakfast stay) from a dear friend. Great gift. Bad timing. But alas, is that not life ….? And is that not something to journal about?