2024 Calendars with planting chart will be on sale
The new Walton County Master Gardeners will have an Open House for their new Greenhouse from 2 to 4 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 20, at the UGA Extension Office, 1258 Criswell Road in Monroe.
The 2024 Master Gardener calendars are hot off the presses and will be on sale at the Greenhouse Open House for $10 or 2/$15 – Cash or Check only. The calendars include garden tips, Vegetable Planting Chart, and lots more great information and dates that could a great gifts for your favorite gardener
Below is a reprint from a monthly feature in The Walton Tribune by the Walton County by Master Gardeners about gardening using the research and resources of UGA Extension.
Creating a garden journal and keeping the record straight
A garden journal is simply a personal diary of what happened in your garden.
Barb Fick, home horticulturist with the Oregon State University Extension Service states, “A (garden) journal can help you plan from year to year by leaving a written record of exactly what, when, and where seeds and plants were grown.”
Even Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, noted “ideas, planting, and harvest dates, names of species and the amount of seed planted” at his Virginia home, Monticello, whose gardens are still meticulously kept to this day. By revisiting your Creating a garden journal and keeping the record straight gardening experiences year after year, you will learn what worked well and what did not.
For many, journaling can be a form of reflection and therapy as well as a good record of everything that’s been planted. Types of journals can include a (shoe) box containing labels, packets, plant catalogs, or handouts from talks, or a simple list of plants purchased and/or plants desired, with website links.
You can also make a garden planner with layouts and photos from your garden or magazines or keep a personal diary with entries posted as desired. There are also gardening databases or apps such as Evernote with specially designed software for record management or for the more ambitious, a garden blog that can be shared with others.
Journal about the types of plants you currently have in your garden and note when and where you purchased and planted. If you want to keep track of how much you spend, note amounts and keep the seed packet or tag for reference. Also list dates of harvest or bloom, noting the weather, such as frost dates, rainfall, and temperatures. Also, make a wish list of plants you would like to grow in the future. Note if you see pests such as aphids and when you put out any pre-emergent herbicides.
How you want to journal is completely up to you! Do you like to write in chronological order? Then perhaps a diary-style or bound garden journal would work for you. Maybe you prefer to add notes here and there as you think of them? Then you might prefer loose-leaf binders and/or computer-generated garden journals. The great thing about a journal is that there are no rules, particularly if it’s for your eyes only!
You can keep track of as much or as little as you want, and though there’s a lot that could be contained in it, some of the simplest and most helpful things to take note of are the plants you have and plants you want to get.
Another way to keep a record of your garden is with our first annual Master Gardener Calendar! It contains a veggie planning chart, monthly garden tips, and a schedule of our free garden talks and community events.
The Walton County Master Gardeners would like to thank our generous sponsor Print Logic for donating the initial printing of the calendar. We are very grateful to you and all of our local sponsors who made this possible!
See you in the Garden!
The Georgia Master Gardener Extension Volunteer Program is offered through the Walton County UGA Extension office. Participants are trained and certified in home horticulture, gardening, and related areas and then volunteer their expertise and services, under the direction of our extension agent, Joel Burnsed.
Our goal is to help others through educating the public about the benefits of a healthy environment and through horticultural projects that benefit the community.
Currently, we help to maintain two gardens in Walton County: Pollinator Sanctuary Garden at Friendship Park in Social Circle; and Vegetable and Flower Garden at Walton County Senior Center.
The UGA Extension has moved to 1258 Criswell Road and is an Equal Opportunity, Affirmative Action, Veteran, Disability Institution.
The Master Gardeners hope to incorporate an Educational Garden on the campus in the next year.
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