Getting Ready for Spring With a New Custom Gardening Journal—Bookblock Review

Winter felt especially long here in Central New Jersey. But at last, the moment has arrived in my gardening zone—7A—to really think about gardening again! For starters, cool-season crops like peas and lettuce can go in now if you haven’t planted them already. It’s also an ideal time to start planning—and even starting indoors—warm-season favorites like tomatoes, basil, and, of course, gorgeous blooms like sunflowers and zinnias, my favorites!

Thanks to my friends at Bookblock, I’m heading into the season with a head start thanks to brand-new, custom-designed notebooks for planning and tracking my gardening goals. I was able to design my journals from cover to cover with support from their team—they helped me select a durable hardcover to align with my sustainability goals and a ring-bound format so my journals will lay flat while I plan, track and journal everything garden-related.

Their notebook builder makes it easy to create fully customized notebooks from cover to cover. You can tailor every detail to your liking—from the cover material (I chose recyclable green vegan leather) to the binding, page layout and paper type. I opted for a mix of lined and blank pages on 90gsm ivory paper, with 288 pages in total. I love that that Bookblock offers FSC® (Forest Stewardship Council)–certified paper sourced from responsibly managed forests. I think it’s important to make eco-friendly choices whenever possible!

Bookblock also offers thoughtful extras to make your journals or notebooks completely your own. I added tabbed indexing and an elastic band to keep everything neatly closed. Bookblock even designed a custom coneflower cover—which I adore—for me and personalized my notebooks’ cover with my name.

Planning this Year’s Garden

I already planted some sugar snap peas and sweet pea flower seeds earlier this month, and some of my peas have started to come up! This year was the first time I’ve ever planted sweet pea flower seeds, so I am hoping I’ll have luck with those. I’ve read that they have a wonderful fragrance, so I am looking forward to making beautiful bouquets to display in my home with them.

Last fall and into this year, I gathered more seeds than usual—everything from vegetables like lettuce, peas and parsley to flowers like coneflowers, daisies and marigolds—there’s a lot to keep track of! Thank goodness that my notebooks include a section for organizing my garden inventory. Last weekend, I logged all the seeds I plan to grow this season, which should help me stay on track and get everything planted on time.

As we get more into the season, I can use my new journals’ tabbed monthly sections to note what I hope to accomplish each month in my garden. For instance, I am considering constructing a low-cost fence around my collection of raised garden beds to keep rabbits and other animals out. The fencing will also be helpful for keeping my Shih Tzu pup nearby (and out of trouble) while I am working on my garden—he loves to be wherever I am! My journals will provide a place to sketch out my plans and note the materials I need. (Stay tuned to see if this is the year I finally build an enclosure for my garden!)

I found a really cute set of gardening stickers on Amazon that I think will be great for adorning my journal pages.

I plan to use the stickers to add a bit of whimsy to my journals’ pages.

I love my new journals—and am sure it will help me to achieve my gardening goals this season! Visit us.bookblock.com to create your very own custom journals!

This post contains Amazin affiliate links.