A few weeks ago in June I had posted on creating a garden journal. This week I want to talk about filling your journal with sketches and notes on your garden. How is it growing? Are some plants doing well and others poorly? Have you noticed any specific details that you found interesting about a plant? There are many prompts you can use to spark a journal entry.

Lets start with How Is It Growing?

My own garden seems to be growing fairly well, except my spinach. My husband and I found that spinach needs cooler weather to grow so it has been quite a hot summer here and the spinach has not enjoyed the heat at all.

I went out and sketched and took some notes on my growth of the garden. Sketches don’t need to look beautiful just so you have an idea of what you are looking at and how well it is growing. You can even note the colors and how dark or light the color of the plants are. Obviously flowers will have more color to take notes on as well.

I will give you an example here of how my beet plants, swiss chard and my flowers called Coreopsis, Nasturtium and Calendula are doing.

I used watercolor for each of these sketches. You can choose to use whatever medium you like, pencils, paint, pastel, pen and ink.

Interesting Details

Look at some of your flowers and note the blossoms, sketch the blossoms, leaves and colors to gather information for next years gardens also.

As you can see above, I sketched several flowers together and made small notes on the side.

Calendula and rose did really well this year in their spots I planted them. I plan to cultivate them more in these areas next year. Calendulas will continuously come back year after year they are annuals when planted in a garden bed. As will rose bushes. I love how small and petite my tea rose is.

Much More Than Just Green Growth

I wanted to share some personal insight I gained while our garden has been growing. Remember that what you do creatively is a reflection of what is happening in your life today. Here is an excerpt from my garden journal on growth beyond the flowers.

As our garden grows, we are growing too. Our hearts are growing closer as a family and blossoming with love and appreciation for one another. We see the growth of God’s many blessings upon our lives and the beauty of His work in our hearts daily.

Every once in awhile a hard, dry day might come along with no thirst quenching water but we hold out hope. It comes again, trickling down sooner than we expected.

Some growth needs more nutrients abd we try to feed these areas to help it along. Often we do not expect the new growth to be as good as it is but we are pleasantly surprised.

A garden is a labor of love in so many more ways than just the love of plants. It is a beautiful metaphor and example of God’s love, family love and the growth, fruitfulness and beauty we all possess on the inside. And that beautiful thing on the inside is called Potential.

There will be much more to sketch and take notes on as time goes on to Fall. I will keep updating you on the process. You start a process of your own and let me know how you enjoy it! I hope you have fun filling your journal with sketches and notes on your garden.