Getting Ready to Garden

OK, so it's 27 degrees outside and there's snow in the forecast...again.  What can I do about gardening now, you ask?

Lots!

One of my personal New Year's resolutions for 2011 is to get organized:  in my office, in the garage (where my craft area is located), and in & about the garden.  I'm so excited about a way to accomplish that last one (...the garden) that I had to share it with you as soon as I could.

Background first.  I have always admired Thomas Jefferson for his journaling.  For 17 years, he faithfully recorded his daily gardening activities at Montecello in his Garden Kalendar, which became a part of his 60-year garden journal published as the Garden Book.  My garden hero!  Such devotion to detail!!

I learned last year that I love to journal about my garden, but I love to actually garden better than to write about it.  Write, as in with pen to paper.  Can you say hand cramps? 

I tried typing into a journal document I set up in Word, and that was a tad better, but I still felt disorganized.  I wanted to be able to keep up with my journaling, true; but it was just as important to keep up with what needed to be done in the garden at any given time (because those tasks will come due every year at the same time) and to catalog the plants we purchased, planted, and grew. And, the pictures.  Most of you know that it's a rare day indeed for me to head out into the garden without my Canon(s) tucked inside my garden tote.

My Journal Page with Photo File on
PlantJotter.com

I think I may have found an answer.  It's called PlantJotter.com.  I read about it in the Greensboro News and Record recently and thought I'd give it a trial.  They let you do that for 31 days...without even entering a credit card number!  That's refreshing, to say nothing of being unusual these days.

I just set up my account today, so I'll have to give you a report after I have used it for a while.  Still, I like what I see so far.  That's a screen capture of my first journal entry and a picture I uploaded of the Garden in June 2010.  Neat!

If you are working on organizing your gardening activities this year, and give PlantJotter.com a try, let me know what you think.  Maybe we can create a 21st century version of Mr. Jefferson's gardening legacy.