Crafty Homestead Garden Notebook

Today was a very good mail day because my two new journals came!  I used Christmas money to treat myself to expensive custom journals.  They are from Paper Source and could not be cuter or more awesome.  When I finish my current To Do List journal and my writing-thoughts-down journal I will replace them with Paper Source journals.

Things I Love About These Notebooks:

• my pens fit into the spiral
• pens don't bleed through to the other side of the page
• they are spiral so they lay flat and can be folded in half
• they are so pretty
• I got 10% off the order

One journal (pictured above) is for all things garden.  When we were house (originally land) hunting I had a notebook that I kept everything in.  As we saw properties & took notes on them and made various lists everything was all in one place.  It was so nice to grab that notebook and know that anything that I would want to reference was in there.  No lists or notes were lost along the way.  I also do that for my To Do lists now.  I love having them all in one place and I love buying cute notebooks!

So I customized the cover of the notebook with "Crafty Homestead Garden."  I didn't put 2015 because it has so many pages I am sure we get at least two years out of it.  I picked grid paper for the inside because I want to sketch out garden bed plans in it among other things.  This way as the summer goes on and I want to write myself notes to reference when I'm planning next year (too much zucchini, move pumpkins next year, etc) they will all go in one place.  And when I want to remember what exactly we planted in that corner over there, I can flip back to the beginning and see the plan that I sketched out in Spring.  

For now I have two pages used already.  One is a list of what we want to plant this year and one is a list of goals for 2015 (based on what I struggled with last summer).

In case you can't read my handwriting I typed them out.

What To Plant This Year:

• tomatoes - grape, black krim
• basil
• cucumbers - regular, pickling
• carrots
• kale
• lettuce
• zucchini
• butternut squash
• pumpkins
• onions
• garlic
• green onions
• peppers
• brussel sprouts
• potatoes
• broccoli
• cauliflower
• sweet potatoes

2015 Garden Goals:

• stay on top of trimming & harvesting the basil
• make enough pesto for the year
• stay on top of weeding
• work on tomato bursting
• regular, deep watering
• try succession planting
• expand the garden dramatically
• check zucchini daily to avoid growing crazy monsters
• do fall planting again
• more than just garlic?
• keep track of how much we plant so we know how much more/less to plant in 2016
• do more from seeds than last year
• (which was zero) 

I want to get to the point where we are growing most of the vegetables that we need for the year.  So storing potatoes, onions, & garlic in the basement and freezing broccoli florets and canning tomatoes, etc.  I know it'll take several years to figure out how much we need to plant of each kind so that we have enough for the whole year, and documenting how much we plant this year is the first step.  Once we know how much to plant to feed ourselves the goal will change to planting enough to have some to sell.

My other notebook I personalized with my initials and used datebook pages on the inside.

 

This will be my planner.  A lot of my To Do Lists will move in to this notebook, along with meal plans for the week, and hopefully soon a work schedule.  It has lots of pages so it should be good for at least a year if not two.  I love that the Month spot is blank so you can start using this whenever you want in the year.  Plus if you miss a week you won't be wasting any pages.  The last column on the right is just a "Notes" column and I like having space that is not assigned to a specific day.  I used this week's blank spot for the grocery list :)