Starting a Gardening Log

When my wife and I went house shopping last year, one of my requirements was having a yard with some open, flat space that wasn't shaded so I could start a vegetable garden. Our new house has a spot in the side yard that is perfect. So last fall I built two raised beds, four feet wide and 24 feet long and one foot high. I filled them with new soil and planted my first crops.

This year, I planted earlier and did a little better, but I'm learning more all the time. I've gotten some great books from my father-in-law, one of which is Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew. It has completely changed my approach to gardening or at least, it will when I plant next.

One of Mel's recommendations is keeping a gardening log of what you plant and when, how you treat the soil, what kind of pest you have, how you deal with them, what the results are, what the crop yields are, etc. The log is a tool for learning what works and having a record of it to refer to. When it came to keeping a log, I wanted to include diagrams and photographs and I thought a blog would be the perfect tool for that. So if no one ever reads this blog but me, it serves its purpose. If someone reads it and finds something of value, then that's great too.