It’s no secret that I keep a garden journal. I have kept one for 17 years now. I find it invaluable for all sorts of things.
I use it to tell me the weather (no, I really don’t see a warming–or cooling–or any other sort of trend at my particular site. But I won’t deny that overall climate change is definitely happening!), I use it to tell me when birds arrive and when they leave and I use it to tell me when plants bloom and when the leaves fall off the trees–things like that.
One thing that I have never used it for but it shocked me to realize this past weekend was that I have never started my plant buying this late in the season before. Well.
Over the last journal (so for the past 7 years) I have made a habit of stapling my garden center receipts into the journal. For one thing, they’re easier to refer back to. And for another, it’s easier for me to see what I bought when.
I can tell, for example, that right around the middle of January I always get “flower starved” and buy a phalaenopsis orchid–no matter how many I already have.
I can see what lectures I many have had when because of my receipts, even if I didn’t record the actual lectures in the journal–the plant receipts from the lectures are there.
And finally, I can see that I always start my tomato seeds in mid-April–after feeling as if this is the latest I have ever done it! So I need to get over feeling guilty about that!
But it was a total shock to see that I hadn’t bought any plants–or even been to a garden center–this entire month.
Obviously the cold, snowy, dreary month had something to do with that. And my lectures are a little bit later this year. But still–I have to get with the program and make up for lost time. Good thing the weekend is here!
Gardendaze 