Review: Moleskine Gardening Journal

I've been wanting to share with you one of my favorite gardening tools: my gardening journal! Last year I came across this book at Barnes & Noble and was immediately intrigued. It looked interesting—useful, even. It also seemed a little pricey, so I was hesitant at first. When I found myself clutching the journal to my chest, unable to put it back on the shelf, I knew that resistance was futile. I proceeded to the counter and forked over the twenty bucks ... and haven't regretted it since!

Moleskine's Passions collection includes over a dozen different journals for recording and exploring your experiences with topics of interest such as wine, tea, dog, baby, restaurant, home life and travel. Each book contains tabbed sections of formatted pages specifically tailored to that topic, as well as tabbed sections of blank pages for you to customize as you like. Plus, stickers! 'Cause, who doesn't like stickers, right? As is tradition with Moleskine bound papery products, the cover will soften and bend as you fill it up with crap, so there's an elastic strap to keep the thing from popping open. Also, three—count 'em, three!—sewn-in ribbon bookmarks and a double pocket in the back cover. It's all very fun and journaly.

So far, the sections of my gardening journal that I use the most are the plant info pages and the garden log. I have a custom tabbed section just for tips and advice and I really look forward to sketching out my new garden plans in the design section. I also keep all of my loose plant tags stuffed into the pockets in the back cover. Handy-dandy!

What's so cool about the gardening journal in particular is that it actually manages to be thoroughly and genuinely relevant to the needs of the gardener. Based on what I've seen of them, it is my opinion that not all of these journals quite manage to achieve that level of usefulness. I could be wrong. Not every cat owner or coffee drinker is the same. I guess that's why half the journal is simply formatted and theme-less for your own personalization.

So, without further ado, here's what's inside:

• front reference section with handy drawings of plant habits and leaves, tables of plant dimensions at maturity and common pot sizes, and maps of world hardiness zones
• "Plants" section with pages conveniently formatted to contain just about every bit of info you might want to remember about a given plant
• "Pots, Tools, Etc." section where you can write down everything there is to know about your favorite pruning shears and potting mixes and other accoutrements
• "Design" section with grids for designing your own gardening spaces, be they water gardens, flower beds or veggie patches
• "Visits" section where you can record the details of an inspirational garden tour and jot down all that stuff you learned at the local nursery but would probably have forgotten if it hadn't been for this journal
• "Garden Log" section where you can chronicle every planting date, bloom cycle, late freeze and fertilizer application
• section of blank pages bordered with grid guides, in case you want more grid space
• section of ruled pages for journaling whatever you want
• another section of ruled pages, 'cause why not
• section of pages divided into five horizontal spaces, perhaps for recording daily conversations with the boston fern in your office cubicle
• section of blank pages for photos or drawings
• index with a line for each page number, so you can actually fill it in as you fill in the pages of your journal and use it to find stuff later

Cool, huh?

But, wait. There's more.

Once you've purchased one of these things and you've spent some time filling it in with scribbles and clippings, you might find that you've run out of space. Fortunately, you can visit moleskine.com/templates and (once you've pulled yet another random password out of your ass, because you have to create a basic account with their site, first) print out as many filler pages as you need! The templates for all five of the named sections from the gardening journal are available on the site in PDF form, for free.

Aaaand, if down the line you find yourself thinking that this journal would be perfect if it just had a section of pages formatted for recording weather cycles or nursery addresses or successive attempts at hand-pollination, then hit up moleskine.com/msk and, with a little creativity, you can build your own templates (or just fill up the pages digitally) for saving and printing and pasting into your journal.

So, do you totally want one of these, now?

Buy your own gardening journal directly from MoleskineUS.com or BarnesandNoble.com!

Disclaimer: Yeah, I know that sometimes this reads like a great, big, gushing advertisement. No, I have not and will not be compensated for my gushiness. I just really like this journal and I think that you might, too. Let me know what you think in the comments!