Reviewing Your Gardening Season: 10 things to track in your garden journal - Ep. 230

[00:00:00] Depending on where you live, your gardening season may just be winding down or at least slowing down a little bit, or it may have been done for a couple of months now.

[00:00:09] This is a great time to take a deep breath, recover from the busyness and the demands of the garden, and then to look back and reflect.

[00:00:17] Planning for next year's garden will be happening soon enough, and I know some of you have already started because I know the seed catalogs are rolling in and that gets us excited for next year.

[00:00:27] But you can't know where you're going if you don't know where you've been.

[00:00:32] What went well in your garden this year? I mean really well.

[00:00:36] What didn't go so well? And what was a complete flop? Do you know why these things happened?

[00:00:42] And is there any way to either duplicate those results or make corrections so they don't happen again?

[00:00:50] Today on Just Grow Something, we're taking the first step towards planning next season's garden,

[00:00:56] and that's reviewing and reflecting what happened this season.

[00:01:01] I'll take you step by step through the things we should record, if we haven't already,

[00:01:05] and how to evaluate what we experienced in the garden in terms of moisture levels, weed pressure, insect damage, and harvests,

[00:01:13] so we know what went right and how to do it again, or what went wrong and how to avoid doing it again.

[00:01:20] Let's dig in.

[00:01:22] Hey, I'm Karen. I started gardening in a small corner of my suburban backyard,

[00:01:26] and now 18 years later I've got a degree in horticulture and operate a 40-acre market farm.

[00:01:31] I believe there is power in food and that everyone should know how to grow at least a little bit of their own.

[00:01:37] On this podcast I share evidence-based techniques to help you plant, grow, harvest, and store all your family's favorites.

[00:01:43] Consider me your friend in the garden.

[00:01:45] So, grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to just grow something.

[00:01:59] As we head into this week, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Joyous Kwanzaa,

[00:02:06] whatever or however you celebrate.

[00:02:08] We are moving into a new year and I am excited for things to come for this podcast and for Just Grow Something in general.

[00:02:15] If you supported the show this year through Patreon or buy me a coffee or purchasing merch or paying for a class or ordered through an affiliate link,

[00:02:23] I truly, truly appreciate you.

[00:02:27] Podcasts and YouTube videos are free to listen to and to watch, but they are not free to produce.

[00:02:33] It costs money and loads of time to do what I and other creators are doing,

[00:02:37] and so anything you throw my way is never taken for granted.

[00:02:41] So, thank you from the bottom of my heart for that.

[00:02:45] Heck, even listening to the automated ads that play during these episodes sends a few pennies my way each time,

[00:02:50] and that all contributes to the bottom line.

[00:02:53] I also have to shout out Magic Mind because not only has their product helped keep me focused and energized when producing these shows,

[00:03:01] they've also helped the show monetarily throughout the past few months

[00:03:04] and I look forward to continuing to work with them in the future.

[00:03:08] Just like I try to continue and improve this show to make it better for you,

[00:03:15] Magic Mind has continued to reformulate their mental performance shot so it not only performs really well, but it also tastes great.

[00:03:21] I can honestly say I enjoy the flavor, which is not something I've ever been able to say about any supplement that contain this many useful ingredients all in one shot.

[00:03:31] Generally, combining lion's mane and cordyceps and turmeric wouldn't taste very good because those are all really strong flavor profiles,

[00:03:39] but Magic Mind got just the right amount of sweetness from the agave and the ceremonial grade matcha gives it a really fresh flavor.

[00:03:47] I just take it as a straight shot alongside my coffee, but I see people adding it to their latte in the morning or their chai or their matcha,

[00:03:55] so that's a testament to its flavor.

[00:03:57] I even used it the morning of my most recent ultramarathon and trust me,

[00:04:02] you want energy and focus when you're running 62 miles all at once,

[00:04:06] but you don't want something that's going to talk back to you, so that tells you how easy it is to use.

[00:04:11] To try Magic Mind for yourself and save 20% on a one-time purchase or up to 48% on a subscription, which I highly recommend,

[00:04:20] go to magicmind.com slash growsomething20 and use code GROWSOMETHING20 at checkout.

[00:04:26] You will not be disappointed. The link will be in the show notes.

[00:04:30] This is episode 230, if we go by full episodes and not replays or bonus episodes.

[00:04:36] That's a whole lot of talking, y'all.

[00:04:38] We have covered a lot of information this year, and I know at times it can be a little overwhelming to absorb.

[00:04:44] I also know I have a significant number of listeners and viewers in Australia and New Zealand,

[00:04:49] and you are currently smack dab in the thick of your growing seasons.

[00:04:53] If you ever need to find a resource from this show, you can go to justgrowsomethingpodcast.com

[00:04:59] and you can use the search function at the top of the page.

[00:05:02] Just one keyword will bring up all the episodes and videos and blog posts related to that topic.

[00:05:08] And of course, if you can't find the answer you're looking for, feel free to email me or send me a DM on social.

[00:05:15] I will happily answer whatever questions I can.

[00:05:18] This is likely the final episode for 2024.

[00:05:23] Next Tuesday is New Year's Eve, and it's not like I have any big party plans or anything, but you might.

[00:05:28] And I have a lot of work to be done on this and other projects.

[00:05:31] I figured I might regain about five hours out of my week by skipping an episode and hyper focusing on some other stuff.

[00:05:38] Yes, it takes about three to five hours for each 30 minute episode in terms of researching a topic and writing notes and recording and editing and posting and creating the email that accompanies it.

[00:05:49] It's on the longer end of that timeframe if I'm adding a lot of graphics to the video.

[00:05:53] So if you watch these episodes on Spotify or YouTube, you know I'm often putting still images or video clips to accompany what I'm talking about.

[00:06:02] I really feel like it kind of enhances the discussion, but it also adds to the amount of time I take to edit.

[00:06:08] So I don't always do it depending on the topic and what my schedule looks like.

[00:06:11] So I likely will be off next week, but you know if I get a wild hair, I might throw something out there.

[00:06:17] Who knows? Either way, we'll be right back at it the first week in January to kick off the new year with more garden goodness.

[00:06:24] If you have ideas for an episode for 2025, please reach out and let me know.

[00:06:30] I love episode suggestions.

[00:06:33] In the meantime, let's review our garden, shall we?

[00:06:40] Documenting observations during the growing season or immediately following the end of the season is really valuable for making informed decisions about changes or additions to our garden plan for the next season.

[00:06:53] So I'm going to break down 10 key aspects to review and record in your garden journal to reflect back on before planning the next year's garden.

[00:07:04] The first one is weather patterns.

[00:07:07] We want to look at all of the things that may impact our garden.

[00:07:13] And number one is our weather.

[00:07:15] So things like temperature trends.

[00:07:17] Was it unusually hot?

[00:07:19] Was there a late cold snap in the spring?

[00:07:22] Was it an early frost date in the fall?

[00:07:24] Maybe our rainfall and not just the amount of rain overall, but the frequency and the intensity of that rainfall.

[00:07:32] If it says you got, you know, six inches throughout the entire season, but three of those inches came all in one day.

[00:07:38] That's something that we should be annotating.

[00:07:40] And, you know, did we have to irrigate or was there flooding?

[00:07:44] Any of those things are going to affect our garden.

[00:07:48] Wind and storms.

[00:07:49] You know, if there was damage or if there were some protection measures that worked really well in the garden, we should be noting that.

[00:07:56] And then also microclimates.

[00:07:58] If there are areas in your garden that seem to just have consistently different reactions than the rest of the garden.

[00:08:05] So maybe you have a low spot on the back end of the garden and it consistently frosts sooner than the rest of your garden because it's, you know, that cold air is settling down lower in that spot.

[00:08:17] Then that is something to note because that's going to affect what you plant there or it should affect what you plant there the next season.

[00:08:26] The second thing would be our overall plant performance.

[00:08:30] So when we're planting, we should be recording the planting dates.

[00:08:33] But we also if we're direct sowing, we want to see how long it took for those plants to germinate.

[00:08:39] We also want to note how long it took for that crop to mature, because when we're putting our garden plan together,

[00:08:45] if we are anticipating that something is going to come out of the garden at a certain time so that something else can go into its place at a certain time,

[00:08:54] if that doesn't happen according to our plan, we need to know that so that we can adjust our plan for the next year.

[00:09:01] Because the first, you know, crop maturing later than it was supposed to affects the other crop going in on time,

[00:09:08] which means it may be overgrown by the time we put it in if we've started them from from seedling indoors.

[00:09:14] Or it's going to mature later in the fall than we anticipated.

[00:09:18] It might not get there before we get to first frost.

[00:09:20] So these are all things that we would need to note so that we can make changes for the next season.

[00:09:26] Another thing in terms of plant performance would be the yield.

[00:09:29] So either the total harvest weight or the total volume, the number of harvests per plant.

[00:09:35] If we are counting on, say, our paste tomatoes, because our family goes through a ton of spaghetti sauce in the wintertime,

[00:09:45] and that's what we need to can up, it's going to be important to know whether or not the plants that we planted gave us the yield that we expected.

[00:09:53] Did we get enough out of that?

[00:09:55] And doing a variety comparison is also key to this, comparing the performance between different cultivars of the same crop.

[00:10:02] So if I am planting Amish paste tomatoes, and I'm also planting San Marzano's, and the Amish paste just blew away the San Marzano's,

[00:10:12] well then maybe I don't want to plant the San Marzano's next year.

[00:10:14] Maybe I want to do all Amish paste, or I want to do the same number of Amish paste,

[00:10:18] and I want to replace the San Marzano's with something else.

[00:10:21] These are things to note if the production level of your garden is important to you, and I think it is for most of us.

[00:10:28] And then the other thing in terms of plant performance would be the plant health.

[00:10:31] So tracking signs of diseases or nutrient deficiencies, and making notes about how bad it was, and what the timing was.

[00:10:41] When did it hit?

[00:10:43] Because these types of things are going to go along with all of the other things that we're noting,

[00:10:48] whether it's the weather patterns or something else.

[00:10:52] Number three would be pest and disease issues.

[00:10:54] Okay, so you know, separately from our plant performance, we do want to record the types of pests that we're seeing,

[00:11:00] when and where they're appearing, what their impact on our plant was, any disease outbreaks.

[00:11:06] So the affected plants, the environmental conditions that led to that, again, that goes back to all of these being intertwined with each other.

[00:11:15] If we see that we have a particular disease pops up, and then as we're reviewing at the end of the season,

[00:11:21] and we realize, oh, well, that was at the same time that we had very cool and damp conditions,

[00:11:26] well, then we know that disease probably was linked to our weather patterns.

[00:11:31] And if that weather pattern isn't something that is normal for our area, we may not have that problem again the next year.

[00:11:35] But we won't know unless we're keeping track of it, right?

[00:11:39] If we are doing any types of pest and disease control, we want to be making notes of whether or not those were effective, right?

[00:11:48] This goes back to our IPM episode, the integrated pest management.

[00:11:52] We have no idea if this stuff is working if we're not making notes about what the overall pest population was

[00:11:58] before we started the management and what it was afterwards and whether or not our plants benefited from that.

[00:12:03] And we can also be tracking the populations of our pollinators and our predatory insects.

[00:12:10] So this goes back to last week's episode.

[00:12:12] We were talking about bringing in those pollinators and bringing in those beneficial insects.

[00:12:16] Did what we planted make a difference?

[00:12:19] Do we see more beneficial insects?

[00:12:22] And this is something that needs to be objective.

[00:12:24] You know, you could subjectively look out there and go, oh, wow, yeah, we had a lot of bees this year.

[00:12:29] But if you have nothing to compare it to written down than the previous year, then you're just kind of going off your memory.

[00:12:36] And that's not always very effective.

[00:12:38] So you can, yeah, you can kind of guess that, oh, yeah, well, I planted more of these plants this year and I did end up with more bees.

[00:12:44] But you're not going to know for sure unless you write these things down, right?

[00:12:48] Number four would be soil and fertility.

[00:12:50] You know, we talk a lot about soil health and how that's sort of our first way that we should be feeding our plants.

[00:12:56] Keep track of your soil structure, the water retention and the compaction of your soil.

[00:13:03] Record what you amended.

[00:13:05] Did you add compost?

[00:13:06] Did you add fertilizers?

[00:13:07] Did you feed the plants throughout the season and the timing of when that happened?

[00:13:11] And then, you know, relate any of those amendments to any observed improvements or setbacks even in how your plants fared, how healthy they were, how well they yielded.

[00:13:23] Keeping track of these things is going to tell you what you should be doing the next year.

[00:13:27] I will tell you, you know, I took it for granted when I first started growing onions that they were getting enough nitrogen because I was adding compost and I was feeding the soil at the beginning of the season.

[00:13:42] I would do it at the end of the season and I would just let my onions do their thing.

[00:13:45] And it wasn't until I started feeding those plants on a schedule and tracking what I was feeding them and how I was feeding them that I was really able to get my onion crop to be fully, fully successful.

[00:13:59] And so keeping track of your soil and your fertility management in a written format is going to give you the tools that you need to go back and make adjustments if you're trying to increase your yield.

[00:14:11] And then number five would be water management.

[00:14:14] How often did you have to water?

[00:14:17] How much water did you have to provide for each of these crops?

[00:14:21] Were some of them more needy than others?

[00:14:24] And would that be because of where they were located in the garden in combination with your weather patterns for the season?

[00:14:32] Or was it just particularly that's just a thirsty crop?

[00:14:35] Do you have areas in the garden where the water is pooling or the soil is drying out too quickly?

[00:14:42] And is there anything that you can do to mitigate that issue?

[00:14:45] You know, we for years and years and years didn't water at all out in our fields.

[00:14:49] Everything was reliant on just mulch because we had no way to get water to those fields.

[00:14:55] And we do have an irrigation system that went in this year.

[00:14:58] So you can bet that I was keeping track of how often I was using that, how frequently I was watering and how much that affected my yield.

[00:15:08] Okay, number six on things that we should be reviewing and annotating in our garden for the season would be our garden layout.

[00:15:16] You know, we talk about how to lay out the garden in terms of our garden planning and looking at our spacing and our companion planting and all that stuff.

[00:15:26] But we have to go back and observe at the end of the season.

[00:15:29] Were our plants too crowded or were they too sparse?

[00:15:32] Did that affect their growth?

[00:15:34] Did that affect how easy it was for us to harvest or to keep them weeded?

[00:15:40] Did we try a new companion planting and how well did it work?

[00:15:43] I, you know, I'm trying new experiment with mint in my some of my raised beds this year.

[00:15:48] I've got 10 of the planter box direct planters out in the front and I've got them planted to mint that I plan to interplant into next season.

[00:15:57] I got those plants started this season and I made a note in my garden journal that yes, this is when they were planted.

[00:16:04] Obviously, they didn't get so big this season that they were going to choke anything out.

[00:16:07] So next year is really going to be the year where I note the successes or the failures of that companion plant.

[00:16:13] And it's also really important if you are using crop rotation in your garden.

[00:16:18] You know, I've mentioned before that crop rotation can sometimes be very, very difficult if you have a smaller space.

[00:16:23] But if you are using containers, if you are in raised beds or if you're in a very, very large garden, I think rotation is a good idea.

[00:16:32] And you should be documenting that crop placement to assist with your rotation planning for disease prevention and for pest management in terms of next year's garden.

[00:16:42] Number seven would be timing and scheduling.

[00:16:45] So did you plant any crops earlier or later than usual?

[00:16:51] And how did they perform?

[00:16:53] That is something to note, especially as our weather patterns seem to be shifting a little bit.

[00:16:59] But I know here, you know, this past spring was very different from every other spring that we've had in recent years.

[00:17:07] Yes, we had a good amount of rainfall, but it also warmed up for us much later than usual.

[00:17:14] I mean, I kept joking that we were actually having a spring because normally it's, you know, really cool, really cool, really cool.

[00:17:21] We get like one week of what's like sort of spring like temperatures and all of a sudden, boom, it's like we're into summer.

[00:17:27] And so a lot of our spring crops tend to bolt very quickly or maybe not produce anything at all because it suddenly got hot.

[00:17:33] And that was different this year, you know, and I can look at, OK, when did these crops go in?

[00:17:38] Did they perform better?

[00:17:41] Yes, they did.

[00:17:43] And if I had gotten them in later, would that have made a difference?

[00:17:46] If I'd gotten them earlier, would that make a difference?

[00:17:48] So making note of the planting dates, but also looking at your season extension.

[00:17:52] So if you planted earlier and you used row covers or cold frames or if you planted later for a fall crop, maybe you were able to avoid that super heat in the summer and get your plants planted a little bit later.

[00:18:07] But you used row covers to extend that season.

[00:18:10] Did it work?

[00:18:11] These types of things are going to, you know, impact your decision about what you do for next season.

[00:18:17] Number eight would be harvest and storage.

[00:18:20] So your harvest timing, what were your peak harvest windows for the particular crops that you were growing?

[00:18:28] Was it different from the previous season?

[00:18:30] Was it better or was it worse?

[00:18:31] And then you can look at all of the other factors we've already talked about to see what might have impacted that.

[00:18:38] You can also track things sort of like your post-harvest, like how well did those crops store or, you know, how much were you able to get preserved?

[00:18:47] Especially since we've talked, you know, a few episodes back about how to properly store those fall harvested crops.

[00:18:55] If you change anything about how you store them, you should kind of keep a log of that and record if you've had losses that are due to spoilage or, you know, or pests.

[00:19:08] Heaven forbid you get mice or something in your storage area.

[00:19:10] But, you know, to give you an idea of whether or not making subtle changes is making a difference in how long you can store those vegetables for.

[00:19:17] Number nine would be tools and equipment.

[00:19:19] Did you get something new that looked like a fun tool and did you use it and was it effective?

[00:19:25] Did it do anything for you?

[00:19:27] Or did it just end up sitting in a corner somewhere because it wasn't as, you know, impactful as you thought it might be?

[00:19:33] Or did you get some things and you used the heck out of them and you could use more things like that?

[00:19:39] Did things break?

[00:19:40] Do you have a tiller that didn't work properly for you in the springtime?

[00:19:44] And maybe now is the time to do some replacements or do some upgrades, things like that.

[00:19:49] It's very easy at the end of the season to just kind of like drop everything and walk away.

[00:19:53] Be like, I'm done.

[00:19:54] You know, the season's over.

[00:19:56] Tuck everything away and not worry about it.

[00:19:58] But if you sit and you reflect back on what tools you were using, what tools might need some maintenance,

[00:20:06] you might have some time to go out and do that now in the off season rather than be surprised when you go out in the spring and go,

[00:20:12] oh, I need to use those pruning shears and then realize they're either completely dull or they've rusted shut because they weren't properly maintained at the end of the season.

[00:20:21] So noting your tools and equipment and maybe what maintenance they might need is a good thing to be able to look back on and kind of give you that reminder of,

[00:20:28] oh, yeah, maybe I might want to go out and sharpen that saw before I go out there for the spring.

[00:20:33] And then number 10 on my list would be just kind of personal reflections.

[00:20:38] You know, now is a really good time now that you've had a chance to maybe kind of breathe a little bit at the end of the season to record what felt the most difficult to manage in the garden this year

[00:20:53] so that you can look for ideas of how to maybe fix that next season, but also to celebrate what worked really well or what exceeded your expectations.

[00:21:02] You know, a lot of what we talk about on this show is how to fix this problem, how to avoid this pest, how to take care of these weeds, how to grow this.

[00:21:11] But we don't talk as much about celebrating what is going really, really well.

[00:21:17] And that is honestly what keeps a lot of us going.

[00:21:19] Like you can have four crops that are just doing horribly, horribly.

[00:21:23] And then you go over here and oh, but look, my tomatoes are like knocking it out of the park this year or whatever, you know.

[00:21:29] So celebrate what worked well and then maybe put a wish list together.

[00:21:32] You know, this might be the time, especially since all those seed catalogs are rolling in, to make some notes about maybe some new things that you want to try or things that you would like to replace.

[00:21:42] You know, going back to what we noted about plant performance and the yield.

[00:21:47] You know, if there are some things that maybe didn't do as well, now's the time to kind of flip through the catalogs and go, oh, maybe that variety might be something I might want to try.

[00:21:55] Or new techniques that you've learned about that you might want to look at or new tools that you want to try next year.

[00:22:00] All of those things are also things that you can take note of now while it's still kind of fresh in your memory before we sit down and start planning later on at the beginning of the year.

[00:22:11] Because you may forget about it by the time you sit down to start planning for next year.

[00:22:19] So tips for effective note-taking.

[00:22:22] Look, you know I talk about keeping a garden journal.

[00:22:25] I will link to the one from the Girly Homesteader that I am using this year in the show notes.

[00:22:30] But it doesn't necessarily have to be anything fancy.

[00:22:33] I started out using just a notebook and doing sort of chicken scratch in there.

[00:22:38] At some point I moved to using a full-blown trapper keeper, if you remember those things.

[00:22:44] A big zippered binder and it had my maps and it had everything in there that I could zip up and take out with me.

[00:22:50] I've used all different kinds of things.

[00:22:51] You can use a spreadsheet.

[00:22:53] You can use an app on your phone.

[00:22:56] Or even just the notes thing on your phone.

[00:22:59] Whatever it takes to make it easy because it will be something that you will do.

[00:23:06] Right?

[00:23:06] If it's easy, you'll do it.

[00:23:08] If it's complicated and convoluted and you don't enjoy doing it, then you're not going to do it.

[00:23:13] We want to be making these entries ideally throughout the entire season.

[00:23:17] I mean, if you've got to sit down at the end of the season and go back and look at these things, okay, that's fine.

[00:23:22] But you know there are things that are falling through the cracks.

[00:23:24] You know there are things that you're forgetting about.

[00:23:27] And it's not going to be until you're in the middle of it next season that you go,

[00:23:31] Oh, yeah, that's what happened last year.

[00:23:34] Because I know.

[00:23:35] I've done it.

[00:23:36] I'm not perfect at this.

[00:23:37] There are a lot of things that I forget to take notes of, especially in the busiest part of the season.

[00:23:42] So if you're not having the ability to be able to write it down or make a note in your phone, then just take pictures.

[00:23:49] Right?

[00:23:49] Take regular pictures in the garden.

[00:23:51] Those are automatically going to be dated for you in your phone if that's what you're using.

[00:23:55] And you're going to be able to document that plant growth or the pest damage or what happened after a significant weather event.

[00:24:02] If you can't write it down, take the pictures.

[00:24:04] And at least you can just put those in one folder.

[00:24:06] And then you can go back and you can look at it.

[00:24:09] If you can schedule some time weekly or bi-weekly or whatever once a month for note-taking in the garden, that is going to be helpful.

[00:24:20] If you can consistently make some sort of note and then sort of review it as you go throughout the season.

[00:24:27] Then, number one, it's going to be better for you at the end of the season for next year's planning.

[00:24:31] But it's also going to help you sort of, if you reflect mid-season, to adapt as you continue going forward.

[00:24:39] If we can analyze these notes during the off-season, before we start planning our gardens for the next season,

[00:24:44] we will have a foundation for improving our productivity, minimizing our challenges with weeds and diseases and insect pests,

[00:24:53] and likely be able to enjoy a more successful garden next year.

[00:24:57] Remember, we can't make informed decisions without information.

[00:25:03] And you are in charge of the information.

[00:25:07] Until next time, my gardening friends.

[00:25:08] Keep on cultivating that dream garden and we'll talk again soon.

[00:25:11] Thanks for listening to another episode of the Just Grow Something podcast.

[00:25:15] For more information about today's topic and to find all the ways you can get in touch with me or support the show,

[00:25:20] go to justgrowsomethingpodcast.com.

[00:25:23] Until next time, my gardening friends.

[00:25:25] Keep learning and keep growing.