Hi - I'm moving to a new house with a garden soon and I am interested
in keeping a scientific log of what happens in the garden and how
successful I am in my attempts to grow vegetables and flowering plants.

The house is in the south east of England, near the coast. Its about 10
by 10 meters (30 foot) and south-west facing. It also contains a glass
house.

I'm thinking that it would be useful to track, daily min/max
temperature, first frost/last frost, precipitation, date of seeding,
date of germination and date of picking.

Any other ideas?

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wrote:
Hi - I'm moving to a new house with a garden soon and I am interested
in keeping a scientific log of what happens in the garden and how
successful I am in my attempts to grow vegetables and flowering plants.

The house is in the south east of England, near the coast. Its about 10
by 10 meters (30 foot) and south-west facing. It also contains a glass
house.

I'm thinking that it would be useful to track, daily min/max
temperature, first frost/last frost, precipitation, date of seeding,
date of germination and date of picking.

Any other ideas?

Keep track of the soil and what you do to it. Keep track of which
varieties you plant, and how they resist (or succumb to) diseases and
pests under your conditions. IMHO, it's best to grow plants that do
well in your garden rather than struggle with unsuited ones that need
pesticides and constant care to survive.

Draw maps. You won't remember later where you planted what last year,
or even sometimes this year, much less where you spread that load of
manure.

Get a daily diary type of book and write down whatever you do or
observe. It's okay to miss most days. Worry about correlating later,
if ever. IME, no matter how impressed you are by what you see or do,
you won't remember exactly when unless you write it down. Tracking
weather and climate can get to be a chore, and the data can be acquired
from your government, but details about your garden can only be
collected by you.

Look around your neighbourhood and see what does well for other
gardeners. This is especially useful when your garden doesn't have
anything blooming at present, and you want to find out which plants
will fill in the gap. Btw, IME, if you see someone working in their
garden and say something like "Nice garden" to them, not only will you
end up standing there acquiring useful and interesting information
until your bladder is about to burst, but you may not be able to avoid
coming away with more cuttings and transplants than you know what to do
with.

You'll get better information from the rec.gardens groups. I believe
there are uk.rec.gardens groups as well. There are zillions of
gardening books, especially about England. Check your public library,
and ask on local groups for recommendations. There are also vast
resources on the web.

If you haven't gardened before, start small, with plants that are known
to do well in your area. Learn what you've got growing there already,
before you start digging it all up. Local plant sales are a great
source of stuff that does well (even too well) locally. You can
replace these plants with ones you like better, that are more difficult
to grow, later. The soil is the most important thing. Develop the
organic content constantly, and don't plant perennials until you've got
the worst of the perennial weeds out of a new bed. This includes grass.

I could go on and on, but this isn't the place for it. Good luck, and
enjoy your garden!