2025 Garden Notebook {January}
This year I purchased a Hobonichi Techo Mega Weeks planner to use as my garden planner/journal. It’s a spendy planner, but I really like how they’re laid out. I’ve been using a Hobonichi Cousin planner for 3 years now and love it, so I thought I’d give the Weeks planner a try too. (There are cheaper knock off versions available, but the original had options that I loved and wanted to try.)

The first section of my journal has a year calendar. This is where I’m tracking weather and specific dates (seasons and first and last frost dates).

The next set of pages is a monthly list, and here I’m keeping track of the temperatures and a chart of freezing weather. The two circled dates are the first and last average frost dates.

This next section has monthly calendars. Here is where I’m trying to build the habit of planning out what I need to do and when. (We’re already at the date where I can sow snow peas!)

After the monthly calendars, the next section has all the weekly pages. Each two page weekly spread has the week on the left page and plain grid paper on the right. I hope to take notes of what I plant and harvest and all that good stuff on the left page and add a sketch on the right page of something that is going on in the garden that week. I hope to have something sketched for each week of the year if I can.

I follow a blogger, Jackie Clay Atkinson, and she and her husband have a small seed business where they grow and sell rare and nearly extinct seeds. I got their catalog in the mail and ordered a batch of seeds just to see how it worked as it is very old school because they live off grid. The seeds look great and they were really quick to ship them, so I browsed some more and will place my next order soon.

The back section of the notebook has a bunch of blank grid pages. Here is where I’ll add all my notes, things I learn, and garden plans. I drew out my garden plans for 2025, but wrote them in pencil because things usually change before it’s final.

Last year wasn’t a stellar year in the garden, as I started late, and we were concentrating in putting in the water drip line. But this year, we’re ready to roll with the system installed and the greenhouse (almost) ready… I still have to organize in there.

My main focus this year is to learn more about making good and quick compost (it’s an art) and trying yet again to grow beautiful onions and carrots. Do any of you have any advice? We have heavy clay soil, but each year it is getting better and better with the compost and no-dig method. We’ve had these garden beds for 4 years now, so they’re not perfect yet, but I hope to use my space well to be able to fill our canning cupboard and share produce with friends, family, and neighbors through the farmstand!
I love looking at your plans. I’ve got plans, too! But I need to finish figuring out where everything will go. And I have one more bed to establish. and beds to top off with compost and mulch. Ah, all the things.
I just put out 400 onion starts, I did 100 last year and got a good harvest and my beds are in better shape this year. So, going for it. For these root veggies, I know a deep bed that is nicely composted/ organic matter and rathe loamy is what they love. Other root veggies, like beets and radishes are tougher and I think can help improve you soil. All the cover crops, like rye and clover, help that soil get looser. We’ve got heavy black clay in our native soil. Of course its a nasty red clay that got used to grade around the house. but clay holds water nicely, so getting that compost/ organic matter into the soil is important. I’ve found that layering it on top still does this, as the goodness seeps down into the heavy stuff on bottom. I have found digging is just too much for me, and I can’t do much of it in this heavy clay.