Over the years I’ve kept many diaries: seed sowing, daily temperatures (max and min), night temperatures (max and min), propagation, first flowering, trials, tribulations and some heartache. They are all interesting in one way or another. Gardening is an art, but there’s a great deal of science to make it work; understanding the many variables is part of mastering it. Or, if mastering’s too much to hope for, a diary at least allows you to recognise your own messy, variable ways.
If nothing else, learn to love plant labels. Yes, they are unsightly, and there’s nothing sadder than a graveyard of them littering a bed, but there is no better way to record plant information.
The plant’s name is a must, because however much you believe you will remember it, you won’t. Include the date, too – if in three weeks nothing has appeared, you can start to think of resowing. (Unless you’re sowing perennials, shrubs or trees, which in some cases can take more than a year to germinate.) Seed doesn’t germinate for all sorts of reasons: you sowed poorly, or it succumbed to disease early on and got damped off, or the seed was too old to be viable. You only see a pattern if you record it. If you’re sowing in a community setup, particularly with beginner gardeners, knowing who has sown what is an essential teaching tool.
Finally, if you are using more than one brand of compost, it’s well worth noting this too, because good compost can make a huge difference to germination.
I always write on labels in pencil because it doesn’t fade in the sun and is easily removed with wire wool when you want to recycle. After years of experimenting with every type going, the bog-standard white label wins. It’s easily cleaned up and will last for years if you buy a good version (try harrodhorticultural.com, pack of 100 for £4.95). Thrifty types will find that plastic ice-cream or margarine tubs, and some milk cartons, make equally useful homemade labels with a little scissor action. I find the biggest issue with wooden labels is that they either rot or the writing fades. Bury the label in the ground at 12 o’clock to the back of the plant; that way, even if you have to dig a bit, you’ll always know where to look.
In my good years, I back up all that I write on the labels in a seed-sowing book or in notes on my phone; it’s one of the most useful things I do. As for the labels that come with shop-bought plants, I stick them on a pin board in the shed, or paste them into my notebook with a location in the garden. (The plastic nearly always shatters or fades if you leave them on the plant.)
I am a huge fan of Rite In The Rain waterproof notebooks. There are reporter-style ones if you want something small (£6.99), or splash out on the Geological version (£27.99) for something to keep in your damp shed. My other notebook obsession is the Ogami brand (from £6, available from origin68.com), an Italian notebook made from stone rather than trees. Yup, ground-up bits of limestone, mashed up with resin, make wonderfully smooth paper that is waterproof and tearproof: the stuff of outdoor-writing dreams.
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