Its a year since G&G was born and I'm finding it interesting to look back at what I was doing/sowing/picking last June. Definitely late this year in all sorts of ways.
This gave me another Nutty idea and a lot of you will mock - but I don't care.
Keeping a daily record/diary of what I've done isn't a success. I start in January with good intentions but by March I've lost interest - the thrill of starting a new diary wears off rapidly. Even my 5 year diary has nothing after February.
Here's my plan - 12 diaries/journals/notebooks/whatever, one for each month. At the end of the month, they're put away and a new book starts on the 1st. So I'll start one on July 1st.
Next year, July 2022, I retrieve the 2021 book and write in it for a month and put it away again at the end of July. 12 books being permanently revisited.
I'm going to use A5, spiral bound notebooks as I have a couple now and they're only £1 or so.
PS Please don't suggest using spreadsheets as I hate them with a vengeance.
You what
So twelve notebooks - one full of Januarys, one full of Februarys ... ? (Or is the plural of January Januaries?!)
I kept a gardening/weather/eating diary when we were first here, but it fizzled out after about four years
That's it exactly.
Twelve Notebooks!
Imagine a book full of January early tomato sowings when its snowing outside - or reading the June book that's full of first pickings (hopefully).
Why can't you just keep on doing what you have done already, check the 'What I did today' thread. Or even better enter it in the G & G diary thread then we can all have a laugh!
You laugh at me whatever I do.
I really would suggest a spreadsheet though there is no entry in my dictionary for the word so must be quite new.
Doesn't cost anything
could use a tab for each year like me or month as you say or you could have a different one for each main crop.
You could fill it/them in when you go on g&g in the evening
Different crops can be recorded in different ways. for me tomatoes are at the top with the varieties/sowing dates/germination/potting on (or grafting)/planting out/notes. Then I record date/variety/weight picked. It does all the adding up and taking away for me.
The only problem is where it says recorded above doesn't always happen. I might look for when I sowed parsnips last year and find the date sown blank - but that can happen in a written diary and is is not as easy to search.
I do have one other spreadsheet for financial stuff as I have a few small pensions and the tax man was always wanting more from me than was due. (S)he was always more optimistic about my income than what I got. This has sorted now but it is still useful to keep a tab on different kinds of expenditure (I haven't got a column for gardening).
No, No, No - Spreadsheets are not my thing at all.
I like books that I can hold and write in in "real" writing not some vague thing that ends up in the cloud or down the pan if my computer gives up the ghost.
I keep backups on a pen drive, clouds are for rain which I've not seen now for a few weeks.
I'd be interested to see a couple of sample pages from your diaries when you have been keeping them for a while.
Books do have a permanence and would be good if kept mainly in the same format but the odd page of general observations would add interest.
I would agree with you except I have been bought notebooks several times and they are all still blank.
Like you, I start with good intentions, but give up. I’ve a 2015 page a day diary. I Scribble in that all the time, and have been doing since 2015. In no order. Some stuff in the front some in the back. Finding stuff in it is pure luck. But I enjoy it.
I think it's a great idea Veggie, no mocking from me at all. I keep a record book full of scribbles each year but hunting back through the books to last year or before can become tedious so I don't do it often. A book full of one particular month sounds good. I don't mind spreadsheets but a book can travel with you up the plot and can be scribbled in as things get planted. I write which varieties get sown/planted where but by the time I get indoors I've forgotten, so it has to be recorded on the hoof.