Thursday, December 29, 2011

Time For A New Garden Journal

It is "that" time of year again. The build up to the New Year. One of the things I like to do during this week between Christmas and the New Year is to get my garden journals ready for action. I like to make sure the 10 year journal is up to date. It has very little space for each day but it is fun to keep daily temps or short accounts of what is going on.
Then I get my brand spankin new sketchbook/garden journal ready to place into it's leather cover.  I can't tell you how disappointed I was when I discovered that Cranson had changed the size of their journals. It says it is the same size but it isn't. I can't even force it into the cover. This will be the first time in 16 years that I won't have this cover with me in the garden. I can't tell you how disappointing it is.
I know I just have to buck up and get over it. I took another sketchbook in hand and personalized it. It is the type with a cover that is canvas so you can personalize easily. The paper in the book is about the same quality. For the most part I write in it but I can draw on this paper if I am so inclined.  It just doesn't feel right holding it though.  It will show dirt easily and I won't be able to wipe it off but it will surely have lots of character by the end of the coming season.
I will get used to it as I do all changes in my garden.  It is just that my garden journals are important to me. This cover has been a work horse for me and a constant companion in the garden. When it gets too hot for Luna to be with me she heads indoors. When my DB sees a big project formulating he usually gets busy else where. Not a problem because I can write down all my ideas and bring him up to date later.  Do you have a constant companion in your garden in the form of a book/journal?

18 comments:

  1. I plan on doing these every year.. and every year I forget after a page to two. I have more blank garden journals. I jot things on little slips of paper I lose. Maybe this next year...:))

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  2. How wonderful that you carry your journal with you into the garden. I would probably keep mine more up to date if I did that but I imagine any journal I would take into the garden would be lost or covered in dirt in short order.

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  3. My journals are on the kitchen counter.
    I keep track of the birds and butterflies....
    the first fire fly of the season and the first blooms. I do try to keep it up.
    I often use a date book. Just a quick jotting. I have big journals for each flower bed...what is planted and such...
    I love the way you keep yours.
    Happy planning....
    Sherry

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  4. I do not have a garden journal, but I bet your prior ones are amazing! I'm sorry your new book won't fit in the old cover...such a disappointment. I like your big bow on the new book though!!! I think it will be a good one for you!!!

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  5. How disappointing that the new journal pages wouldn't fit into your old cover. I can remember seeing this journal in an earlier post of yours, and I imagined that it was full of your sketches as well as notes. I wish I could be disciplined enough to keep a journal. I started one this year, but somehow there are whole months empty in mine. Maybe I should make that a New Year's resolution.

    I hope you and DB had a wonderful Christmas, Lisa. Best wishes for a very Happy New Year!

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  6. I admire your tenacity. I would like to think that I could have enough patience to journal each day about my garden; perhaps I will give it a good try.

    I share Marguerite's fear though. I am certain I will misplace a journal in the dirt if carried outside and into the garden.

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  7. Hi Lisa,

    I really understand you. Your journal cover IS an old friend.....it has felt your touch for many years and you are part of it.

    I have a very old garden fork.....in the summer the handle broke. I was devastated. It had been with me through good and bad times and for so many years.
    Anyway.....lovely Mr P took it to work and repaired it. whilst it has lost some of it's character, it is still my old garden fork :)

    Love the journal, love your ways my friend.......

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  8. Cris there is always next year. :)

    Marguerite, I have never actually lost my journal in the garden but I have misplaced it. The leather cover has kept it from being ruined by rain several times. Sigh...

    Sherry, my 10yr diary is like a date book. I jot firsts etc in it.

    Rose, we did have a wonderful Christmas. Looking forward to the new year. Happy New Year to you too.

    Debra, I don't journal every day. I write only when I have something on my mind. Some days this takes several pages, sometimes it is a mere mark or drawing on a page. No pressure.

    Cheryl, thank you for understanding my angst.

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  9. I keep my journal on the computer, but sometimes by the time I go indoors I forget what I was going to write down! My constant garden companion is my dog. She is a young dog that likes to chew on things. If I laid a journal down for an instant she would have it in her mouth!
    Best wishes for the New Year!
    Lea

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  10. You have the most elegant, beautiful journals!

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  11. I can't imagine keeping 2 journals. (Right now I'm struggling with just one.) It's too bad the company had to change the size of that one. I've taken to jotting notes on my phone, then transferring them to the big book, but the whole process kind of broke down about the time of the last killing frost.

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  12. Your gardening journal is so pretty. I keep a gardening notebook with everything recorded in it. I have been getting it updated like you have.
    Wishing you an Happy, Healthy and Blessed New Year.

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  13. Maybe somewhere there is a journal that will fit in your leather cover? Keep looking!

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  14. Your journals are a great part of the new year. Enjoy them!

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  15. Like you I also wrote a garden journal for years which was so helpful when comparing the different years in the garden. The last two years I didn't write anything...I was a little lazy or other things were more important ;-). But my best friend gave me a new gardenjournal for a Christmas gift...so I won't have any excuses this year. I'm going to continue and write down all the changes in the gaden, plans and ideas I have in my mind.

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  16. I have a dozen volumes of a journal I like and they stopped making it. Last time I bought five at once but did not count on it being discontinued. I like to write, draw, erase and glue and I use a fountain pen so the paper quality is important. I've switched to an artist's spiral bound sketch book which is similar — but it is just a bit taller and won't fit on the shelf with the others. If it's not one thing ....

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  17. I can see why you'd miss having that beautiful journal in the garden with you. Sometimes it's just hard to adjust when you are so used to something. I dont have a journal buy I do have a little binder in which I try to record everything I plant.

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  18. What a bummer the new journal doesn't fit the cover!! I like the continuity of a familiar cover with each new set of blank pages. I guess photos are as much of a garden journal for me as anything, though I need to start jotting down ideas for things I want to move around! (My head is not a good place to store such things any more.)

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