best Gardening Journal planner 2022/2023: The Gardener's Logbook AND Journal planner

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To form roots the plant doesn’t need nutrients but does needs oxygen and water so the planting medium needs to be well draining but do not allow it to dry out. The Cavolo Nero in the polytunnel are very cheerful: they don’t seem to have minded the deep freeze they went through – and (along with a few perky grasses and goosegrass, of course) we have lovely winter purslane which seeded itself all around the base of each plant – salad for the next few weeks! Colourful photographs of National Trust gardens can be found every month in this beautiful Gardening deluxe diary for 2023. Before we begin to mulch we must weed and cut back perennials, although we leave some foliage and seed heads for interesting textures, shapes and forms as well as providing food and shelter for wildlife.

To make sure all the green tomatoes fully ripen over the coming months now is the time to cut the bottom leaves on each plant. I spoke too soon; we had several more periods of hard frost and the hopeful remnants have vanished; the garden stands beautiful as ever but slightly forlorn. A retired primary school head teacher, I now spend much of my time gardening in our quarter acre plot in rural Shropshire south of Shrewsbury. We use the no dig method, to preserve the soil structure and retain soil carbon – and also to produce amazing vegetables, I’ve been astonished by the difference since I started it just two years ago.I seems appropriate to publish this post on the first day of the new year, 2024 when I will be preparing for creating the first pages of my garden journal January 2024.

I noted that, “We grow three different hamamelis shrubs here in our Avocet garden to give scented flowers in winter. A useful tool where you can organise ideas and garden plans they can also help you be as efficient as possible in the garden. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. It’s also packed with all your favourite features, including key dates for gardeners, my monthly gardening tips and my favourite gardens to visit each month.Seedlings almost ready to go – maybe not quite, but when they’re just a tiny bit bigger, out they go: cabbage, kohl rabi, various lettuces, all under fleece to protect them. We have a large garden and 55 acres of land and I believe that at this time, given the threats to our climate and ultimately our economic system, we should be growing much more food (and for more on that have a look at Chris Smaje’s book A Small Farm Future). However, at this time of year we do give the whole lawn a final cut to ensure this mix of plants flourish amongst the grasses for next year’s picnics on the lawn. The photos are always lovely, so much so that at the end of the year I give them to my young grandchildren to use in collage,etc so not wasted. So this is parsnip, which has been the devil to germinate this year; lets see how we go next spring with our own seed.

It is hard to believe that we are already looking at the entries for the last month of 2023, a difficult year for gardens and gardeners alike, trying to cope with unusual weather events and mixed up seasons.They can be a place to hold thoughts that strike you while you’re gardening, or simply to sketch or paint your take of your surroundings. To enable personalised advertising (like interest-based ads), we may share your data with our marketing and advertising partners using cookies and other technologies. There’s space for you to reflect on last year and plenty more space for your goals and to do lists for each day of the year ahead.

I was inspired by one of the sessions at the Oxford Real Farming Conference in January; it was on Shumei’s Natural Agriculture: they don’t rotate, they grow each vegetable in the same place every year, and only use their own saved seed. It sounds great and the results seem wonderful; I haven’t visited – there’s a farm in Wiltshire – but I’m having a go. I wrote, “These grasses remained bright yellow into December, which arrived bringing with it cold, wet days with the occasional blue sky days with frosts cold enough to blacken our dahlias. Volunteer Chris standing in the irrigation trench looking pleased, as well he might – he’s dug a huge long trench to bring water up from our old brick-lined underground water tank, which apparently holds 80,000 litres. If we look over onto the next double page spread we can see succulents featured on the left page, where I noted that, “Most of our succulents are in the greenhouse now enjoying avoiding the winter cold and wet.Our keen birdwatchers continue to meet once a month and were rewarded with sightings of Redwing and Fieldfare as well as a large flock of migratory Blackbirds. For example, many mature plants can be divided (geraniums, rhubarb, chives), strawberries produce baby plants from runners and these can be potted up, or you can expand your plant collection by taking cuttings. Once you see signs of new growth and roots emerging from the bottom of the pot, maybe 4-6 weeks later, then it will be time to pot on to a more nutritious compost.