I wanted to be a little more scientific in my gardening this year as far as recording and tracking varieties of plants and planting and harvest dates. In the past I never recorded dates, and even though I stuck the little plastic plant labels in the ground by the things I planted, by harvest time they were usually gone due to weeding, watering and so on.

I started keeping notes, but they were scattered and it was tough adding pictures to handwritten notes. Just as I had discovered with my karneyfamilyrecipes.com site, the easiest way to keep this information organized and to pass it along to those who might be interested is to build a website, and put the information “in the cloud”. Since I’ve done this before, getting the domain name and setting up the site took less than an hour.

I initially built this site for myself, to record plant varieties and planting and harvest dates and anything else that might be useful for future gardens. Planting and working the garden is in itself therapeutic, and thus has a lot of value. But harvesting the crops provides healthy foods and a connection to friends and neighbors who also benefit from the abundance of my garden. So, having a way to create a longer growing season is important. Hopefully, good record keeping will help me to that end.

But of course, once the data is recorded, there other thoughts and reflections that come into my mind and I have recorded those here also, because as it has been since the beginning, gardening is not only good for the body but also good for the soul. Again, my original purpose was for my own use, but if you find any of this useful or inspirational, welcome.