Garden Journal vVARY

Remember which date you sowed your tomato seeds last year? or which of the 3 varieties of marigolds you grew had the best flowers? No, we don't either.

Whether you garden in a collection of mismatched pots crammed onto a tiny balcony, a busy city allotment, or a sprawling countryside pad with rolling lawns bordered by perfectly manicured topiary, we all want to do a little bit better with our gardening each year.

But with constantly busy lives, keeping track of the long-term changes, successes and failures in a garden is difficult. We all think we'll remember where we planted those bulbs, but in reality we've forgotten by spring.

With the Garden Journal you can quickly and easily add notes and photos of your plot, from the progress of your seedlings to that glorious harvest. Note down what you did today, take a photo of those great looking flowers or just jot down your thoughts. Learn from year to year what works and what doesn't, and avoid wasting time and effort on those plants that aren't suited to your local conditions.

What can I write about?
There are often many little thoughts that crop up while out working your plot, but you don't need to write down everything. Think about what might be useful this time next year, or what you wish you'd remembered last time.

You could also add:
- Annuals and biennials - when did you sow seeds, were the germination rates good, and when did you pot on and plant out
- Harvesting - how much did you harvest from each crop, and which varieties do you want to grow again
- Crop rotation - which crops were planted in which bed last year, as a regular rotation helps avoid any buildup of disease or depletion of minerals
- Weather - what were the conditions at important times of the year, was it very dry during fruit pollination season or was winter so wet that everything flooded
- Pruning - when did you prune your plants last year

Your Data
The notes and photos which you add to the App are stored on your device and, if you sign in to Google (which we'd recommend), the photos will be backed up to Google Drive. If you have Android's backup turned on, notes will be backed up automatically by your device. We do not store this data in any other locations, or on any external servers.

The App includes export and import functionality which enables you to manage your notes as you wish. If you want to move your notes into another system or back them up to a secondary location, then just export them out from the option on the Settings page. Its all stored in a ZIP file containing your photos and a readable CSV file (you can open a CSV in Excel).

If you are moving to a new device, we recommend you export your data as a backup to ensure nothing is lost, it can then be easily imported back in.

If you sign in with your Google account, the account will only be used for the backup of images. We do not access any other data from the account and none of the data gets sent to us.