The garden notebook

The gardens at the new house have been a real source of joy and inspiration and have me dreaming of future plans.  I can't wait to see the bulbs in the spring.  Every time I plant something I dig up a few bulbs.  I figure they must be just about everywhere.  The previous owners left me a garden notebook and receipts of fruit plants they had bought in the past.  I started reading the garden notebook this week.  It is priceless! It notebook itself predates their purchase of this house in 1985.  The first 4 pages are expenses from 1974. The garden notebook begins in 1988 on May 8th.  It's just a simple diagram of the vegetable garden.  Turns out the gate was there in 1988, that explains why it is starting to fall apart.  And they had strawberries, quite a few, but none are there now.

 The above drawing is interesting because it diagrams the bulbs that she planted in 1993 around the back patio. 

 One of my favorite parts of the garden notebook is when she went back later and wrote in how things did.  For example, I know they had lots of rain in 2000, the beans did well, and the white corn- "don't bother, yuck." I may not bother with lima beans as they were "awful."  I also know that I should plant my onions before May 27th since the ones planted on that date in 2002 didn't do well and she recommended planting earlier. 

She was still planting and writing in the notebook 3 weeks after we signed our sales agreement.  Her last entry is dated May 19 and there are still at least 20 pages left in the notebook.  Guess I need to keep it going.