Garden scrapbook: a year of beds, seeds and harvests
Photograph each bed from the same spot every month, keep each seed packet with its sowing date, and note what grew, what failed and where. The book doubles as next year's planting plan.
A garden book is half record and half keepsake. Dates, varieties and positions make it useful next spring; the photographs make it worth opening.
Choose two or three fixed spots, such as a fence post or the back step. Take a photograph from each on the first weekend of every month.
The before photograph is the one people forget. Take it now, even in winter, before anything is dug or planted.
Make the memory book together
Invite people to send photos and their own words, then choose what goes in the book.
Same spot, every month
Stand in the same place and hold the camera at the same height each time. A wide view from an upstairs window shows the whole plot changing.
Twelve monthly views of one bed fit on a single spread as a grid of small photographs, with the month written under each.
- Note the fixed camera spot on your plan or use an existing paving edge as the marker.
- Note which way you faced.
- Keep the photograph even when the bed looks bare.
Seed packets and plant labels
A seed packet records the variety, the supplier and the sowing advice. Empty it, flatten it and keep it in a pocket with the sowing date on the back.
Labels from bought plants carry the name you will forget by autumn. Photograph each one in its pot before planting, before the print fades.
A map of what grew where
Draw the plot from above once a year with beds and pots in place. Write in what was sown or planted in each, with the date.
Rotating crops is easier to plan from a map than from photographs. Mark anything that did badly in a different colour.
- Draw to rough scale; paces are close enough.
- Add the trees and fences that cast shade.
- Keep last year's map beside this year's.
Harvests and failures
Photograph the first harvest of each crop on the kitchen scales with the date. The weight says more than a description.
Record what you observed and when: frost damage, a dry bed or missing seedlings. Mark a suspected cause as uncertain instead of recording it as a confirmed diagnosis.
Give each bed a permanent code
Label beds or pots A, B and C on the plan and use those codes on photos, seed records and harvest notes. If a pot moves, record its new position and date instead of changing its identity.
Pages to make
Before
The plot as it is now from each fixed spot, dated, with the plan drawn from above on the facing page.
Sowing
Flattened seed packets with their sowing dates, the trays on the windowsill and the first seedlings.
High summer
The same views as the opening spread, months later, beside the best close-up of a single plant.
Harvest and next year
The first harvest on the scales, the map marked with what worked, and a short list of what to change.
Questions
What should go in a garden scrapbook?
Monthly photographs from fixed spots, seed packets with sowing dates, plant labels, a map of the plot, and photographs of harvests and failures.
Is a garden scrapbook the same as a garden journal?
A journal is mostly writing and dates. A scrapbook puts photographs, packets and labels beside those notes, so you can see what happened.
How do I show a whole year on one page?
Use twelve small photographs of one bed from the same spot in a grid, with the month under each and the bed's name and year at the top.