Getting Organized

It’s a quiet Sunday here in the Garden Spot. The grandsons were here for the weekend, and we celebrated the little granddaughter’s 4th birthday yesterday. Today the Denver Broncos are playing the San Francisco Forty-niners in London. Now, I am not an obsessive football fan, but the game is usually on as part of our Sunday ritual. So far the Broncos are playing much better than the whipping they took from the Raiders last week—59-14. What a humiliation. Caught up on school work for the moment, I decided to start a project that I have had in the back of mind for a while, just waiting for a time to actually do it.

I wanted to come up with a better way to organize all of those tags, labels and markers that come with the potted perennials. In the past, I put them in a notebook, most often just throwing them between the covers and not really organizing. So this morning I began copying the tags by using the copier on my old HP scanner/copier/printer. I am pleased with the results and now will have a smartly organized garden notebook.

First sort your tags. Wipe off any dirt or girt before you lay them on the scanner bed. You can organize according to the garden bed, date planted, species, color—whatever works for you. Many tags have plant statistics and planting instructions on the reverse side, so I copy the backside as well. I turn the tags over, reinsert the printed page so that it prints on the back and I have preserved both sides of the tag on one sheet. It takes some practice with the printer if you want to line the back of the tag up with the front of the tag on the printout, but as far as I am concerned, it really isn’t necessary. I am envisioning a well-organized plant inventory in a nice notebook where I can keep good records of what grows in the Garden Spot. Happy Halloween.