Organizing your PLANTING / HARVEST

I've played for a few hours learning how to use MS excel and word to get these sheets for my seed planners/cropping.
I got the finished product and took it to office world where they printed out 20 for me on some thick paper. As the years progressed i noticed it could be better and the picture in the link are the latest version

To get all my seeds down and in the right order with the right informationneded for sowing etc i also used an Excel sheet
this ended up with three work books for veg , flowers & herbs i printed these lists as A4 in alphabetical order , heat sealed them ,then hand wrote the info on the planner which is A3 size

The latest sheets are printed at home on our variable sized paper printer , done on A3 ) We purchased it when our five year old colour laser printer was going to cost an arm and a leg to put four new toners in it.





Any one want a copy to play with..... drop me a PM

The best thing about this way is that i only have to adjust things onn the seed lists when they have run out and I've purchased new seds . Once I have the master planner to my liking I'll save it & my seed list on the cloud storage bank offered by my antivirus supplier .

littlejo wrote:Thanks Kim
I think I will order this, glad it is spiral bound. Wish the SFG book was spiral bound too. I'm going to look for other good or gardening books to order, to maybe get to the free shipping limit on Amazon.
Jo

You can go to an office shop and they will bind your books! I have done it with ANSFG and the old one and several others. On the list to do Monday with my new ones. Costs me about $3 a book at most.

Thanks for reminding me of that! I remember someone mentioning the binding and was going to and then had another senior moment.

I just looked at your temp and mine and its colder here! We are finally having some winter here. All my fruit trees and flowering pears are already blooming. Prob. will lose the fruit this yr.
Jo

Ok, hats off to all of you very organized nerds! I can see why your gardens do so well.

Now, this free spirit is not nearly as organized.
I print out my garden plan layout, start seeds indoors (and some winter sowing outside this year) around Valentine's weekend, look outside and say to myself "hmmm, I think spring will be early this year," plant all brassicas/herbs/onions/garlic with extra to share with family if the plants survive (or force them into "extra spots"). I do write the date I started the seeds on my plant markers and then pencil in the expected harvest date on my kitchen calendar.

About early/mid April, I start everything else in the garden from seed and cover most w/ milk jugs or plastic till mid May-ish.

Lemonie wrote:Ok, hats off to all of you very organized nerds! I can see why your gardens do so well.

Now, this free spirit is not nearly as organized.
I print out my garden plan layout, start seeds indoors (and some winter sowing outside this year) around Valentine's weekend, look outside and say to myself "hmmm, I think spring will be early this year," plant all brassicas/herbs/onions/garlic with extra to share with family if the plants survive (or force them into "extra spots"). I do write the date I started the seeds on my plant markers and then pencil in the expected harvest date on my kitchen calendar.

About early/mid April, I start everything else in the garden from seed and cover most w/ milk jugs or plastic till mid May-ish.

Nerds INDEED ! take a look at Billy Gates Nerd indeed

Having a bit of fun and also being partly serious ... Does you haphazard unplanned method give you a succession of a wide variety of fresh food daily the whole year round or do you get your harvests a bit like lumpy watery custard ?

I also have to plan and organize my gardens since I will not remember what I planted yesterday or the location!
I also use Excel for one of my vegetable lists. Burpee.com has a calendar of planting according to your zip code/zone. I copied and pasted that to my Word and tweaked it accordingly.
I also use Excel which is really easy once you get over the intimidation of something new.
I try to keep my planning as simple as possible. For each of my boxes I list the vegetable, plant date and harvest date; each box has its own sheet.
For example this year:
Box #1 has tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and beets
Box #2 has peas, pole beans, lettuce, radish, spinach, edamame.
Box #3 has cucumber, watermelon, carrots, scallion, turnip, pumpkin, lettuce.
Next year I rotate the crops so that:
Box #1 has peas, pole beans, lettuce, etc.
Box #2 has cucumber, watermelon, etc.
Box #3 has tomatoes, peppers, etc.
So far this has worked for me. I also bring the sheets outside with me along with my pencil and mark any changes which I tend to do alot!
I say go with what works for you as long as it works!!
(I tried to post my plans but it wont let me.) :scratch: