How do you organize your garden diary/calender?

[Linea_Norway]

As a small beginner gardener who wants to grow more this year, I am beginning to see that I should organize seeding.

So far, I have printed out a seeding calender from a local shop. The calender is in very small print and contains a lot that I am not growing. I don't have access to a bigger printer, as I stopped working.

Therefore I made a diary of what to do each month, and what I have done. First I tried simple, with a paper list in my bullet point journal. But it needed more structure than that.

Now I made a spreadsheet with a new tab for each month. The seeds that I own represent a row in each month in which they can be sown, either sown inside or outside. I greyed out the irrelevant dates for outside/inside sowing when that is relevant, but left it readable. I made a column for the name of the plant and the producer or shop. I also made a column for when I sow them and when they first pop up.

I also made another spreadsheet that contains a list of all relevant plants, with plants they like and dislike. Based on what I could find online about plant combinations. I intend to update that list based on my own experiences as well.

What do you more experienced gardeners do? And are there obvious things I am forgetting?

[the_hobbitish]

I keep it really simple because the more complicated I make it the less likely I am to follow through. I still consider myself a beginner so this year is all about keeping it manageable.

I printed the planting list from my local ag school based on last frost dates and transferred the dates for what I usually plant into my regular calendar/planner.  I'm zone 7 so the dates I can plant things is really broad. I only put the first available date in my calendar.

I only have 6 dates:
- starting tomatoes and peppers inside
- when all the spring veg goes in ground (I'll do the lettuces in succession and everything else in a lump)
- plant the summer veg and move the tomatoes out
- the watermelons and pumpkins a week later
- late summer plant the winter succession veg


I also made a little map of my boxes to remind myself where to plant everything. That's also fairly simple and mostly a reminder of where I'm moving my trellis stuff this year. I don't worry too much about what I plant with what though I tend to keep the basil by the tomatoes and have flowers and herbs scattered anywhere there's an empty spot.

[Linea_Norway]

Yesterday I downloaded an app, called Planter - Garden Planner. It has the function that you can plan what you sow in your garden based on the square foot gardening method that I read about during Christmas. It gives feedback on whether plants thrive with their neighbours or not. I would have saved a lot of time if I had found this app before making all my lists.

It does not have a lot of functions in the free version, like you can only have one garden.

[herbgeek]

I will admit I'm not really organized, and would probably benefit from being so. 

I have general rules of thumb on when plants can be planted, and work backwards from the information provided on the seed package as well as experience.

In my area, I can plant salad crops out in late April.  Since I have DIY low tunnels, I can get away with late March or early April for planting, and then back up 6 weeks or so for seed starting.

Tomatoes can go out end of May, so they are typically started mid to late March.,  Peppers take foreve to get to a reasonable size, so should be started earlier than the tomatoes, but since I'm lazy, they tend to get planted the same time and then I curse myself for not starting them earlier.  Peppers really can't go out around here until the beginning of June.  They will just sulk and not grow if planted earlier, but again since I can do them under cover, I can get away with mid May.

Pole beans can't go out earlier than first or second week of June, and since I grow these on a structure, and not under cover, I can't cheat on this date.  Cukes get started in pots, then go outside end of May, with me watching the weather and  growing them under a cloche if its not warm enough.

My last guaranteed frost date is May 31 so I'm told, but in the 25 years I've been gardening in this location, I've never seen a frost past the first week in May.  I do keep an eye on the weather, and protect anything that could be of risk in May.  After June, I remove any and all covers.

[Fru-Gal]

PTF

[Dreamer40]

I have a 3 ring binder and the first few pages are a printed calendar from my local nursery about what can be planted when. I have sections in the binder for each year where I keep a running log of activities in my garden. Like I write down when I plant a new berry bush and what kind it is, when the tomatoes went in, how big certain plants are if I’m concerned that they aren’t growing well and want to measure again later, etc. Sometimes I draw diagrams of a bed if I want to remember which plant I put where.

I have a spreadsheet of all the seeds I currently have with sortable columns for when to start seedlings and/or when to direct sow outside. I also include a column for when I bought the seeds.

Finally, I have a new fertilizing and pruning calendar for all my bushes and trees. It’s more like a running list for the year than an actual calendar. I check it on the first of each month (or close to it)  to see what needs fertilizing. And there are notes in the back about what to use for fertilizer. I have a lot of plants and it’s easy to forget something! I totally forgot about fertilizing my roses last year.

[Frugal Lizard]

I just have a journal devoted to all things gardening.
I have a plan that is to time scale - so that I can organize the relay planting for each bed.
I got that idea last year from the Vegetable academy - but I don't know if it is still available for free - I can't find the plan I made last year on my drive but I can find an image of the first page.

You write your crop type in the length of time it needs to be in the bed. 
The second image is the what I planned to do in the big garden.  It didn't work out exactly to it - I didn't do a much planting later in the season and I ended up planting popcorn with the squash.

[Linea_Norway]

@Frugal Lizard

That is an impressive plan.

I guess I could make something similar in a spread sheet, although not as automated and fancy. It does require a database/list of your crops. For my first veggie garden at the cabin, the season is so short (mid Jun to mid Sep), I can only grow stuff once and I am happy if it works out at all. But I understand that it is practical if you have many beds and a long season. Maybe at our next house...

[Frugal Lizard]

@Frugal Lizard

That is an impressive plan.

I guess I could make something similar in a spread sheet, although not as automated and fancy. It does require a database/list of your crops. For my first veggie garden at the cabin, the season is so short (mid Jun to mid Sep), I can only grow stuff once and I am happy if it works out at all. But I understand that it is practical if you have many beds and a long season. Maybe at our next house...

This year I am just going to trace the length of time for each crop and cut them out and put some re-positional tape on the back. I will just print out the plan of the garden from last year.  I don't have access to the canva file - just the PDF of the finished file.  But it is really helpful to be able to "see" the length of time.
 I can eek out a long season with floating row covers, cold frame and of course, the greenhouse. 

[Linea_Norway]

@Frugal Lizard

That is an impressive plan.

I guess I could make something similar in a spread sheet, although not as automated and fancy. It does require a database/list of your crops. For my first veggie garden at the cabin, the season is so short (mid Jun to mid Sep), I can only grow stuff once and I am happy if it works out at all. But I understand that it is practical if you have many beds and a long season. Maybe at our next house...

This year I am just going to trace the length of time for each crop and cut them out and put some re-positional tape on the back. I will just print out the plan of the garden from last year.  I don't have access to the canva file - just the PDF of the finished file.  But it is really helpful to be able to "see" the length of time.
 I can eek out a long season with floating row covers, cold frame and of course, the greenhouse.

The vegetable academy planner now costs $10.
It looks like Vegplotter has a free planner. I will test it to see if it has similar functionality. When registering, I found a town not so far from our cabin, so I hope the climate in the app will be realistic.

[Fi(re) on the Farm]

I've been vegetable gardening for over 20 years and never kept track of anything. This year I've decided to keep a journal on it. My MIL gave me a blank book years ago and this year I've cut out pictures of each variety, where I got the seeds and when I started them. I don't know how long I'll keep it up but it's a good start. Years ago I printed out a spring garden calculator from https://awaytogarden.com/when-to-start-seeds-calculator/. You can customize it to your growing zone.

[Linea_Norway]

I simplefied my multi-tab spreadsheet with seeding tables and just all put it on the same page.
One column with all the seeds I have, next columns with type, producer, shop, date acquired. The first column is sorted by sowing date.
Then come columns for each half or whole month. Made orange for sowing indoors and made green for sowing/planting outdoors. So it looks like the bars on the seed packages. Columns for irrelevant months can be collapsed to make the sheet fit in one view. Last columns are for date sown, date first seedling appearing and comments. I mark the plant in the first column with yellow when I have sowed it.
Never done this before, but this seems easier than my system with a tab for each months. Easier to get a full overview of what needs to be done.

[Weisass]

This year I'm trying something new. I haven't been great at hand writing it, and I end up with papers all over hte place. So this year we made a word doc with the beds, and as I sow things I am putting textbooks with the name of the plant, the number of plants, and the date of sowing in the area it has been put. Hopefully this will be a good reference for what is doing well.

[Linea_Norway]

I made my spreadsheet bigger. The sowing page worked reasonably well for sowing, but did not work for making notes. So 8 added a few tabs.

The first page is still for sowing. With the dates of sowing and sprouting. And a comment column to comment on sowing or sprouting. And additional columns for the variety of plant, producer, shop and year.

The second tab is to make a notebook for the vegetables. Just a couple of rows for each veggy, where I can make a note, about repotting or where to plant it or whatever. And add row rows to a plant if relevant.

The third tab is a notebook for herbs, just because the vegetable page was getting too large.

[Linea_Norway]

I now use an app called Sowing Calendar, where I register what I sow and where, and when the plants sprout. I also write dairy entries per plant.
But it is not a planner for a plot. The app lacks the option for multiple gardens. It only has plots, but you cannot sort on those. So it is very plant focussed.

[Linea_Norway]

Always on the lookout for improvements, I installed another planting app called Gardenizer. It has the option to define many locations. And you can add the same plant to several locations.

When adding the plants, you can choose from a list of very specific seeds, but the list is far from complete. So I had to make many adjustments to choosen seeds and make many custom plants without picture. Edit: I could add a picture later. And adding customs plant is not difficult.

This app has what mynold app "Sowing calender" lacks, which is future tasks and multiple locations. So far, I like the location stuff. I used to write gardening tasks in my paper notebook, so adding that to the app might be an advantage when I am in our far away garden location and forget to bring my notebook.

I will check if I can use this app for the sowing as well. I only want to add the date of sowing and date of sprouting, to register for later use.

Edit: I just spent a lot of time adding all my plants with their history into the Gardenizer app. I added sowing, sprouting, moving to another pot and planting out as events. I can combine events where I sow several plants as one. So far, it looks quite good.

There is a little bug that if you want to delete the variety name, it has a hickup where the change doesn't show. You need to move to another line to refresh the result. But that is the only flaw.

What Gardenizer does better than the Sowing Calender is that it if you were in a list of items and open details, that you afterwards return to the same place in the list. The Sowing Calender always goes back to the start of the list, which can be a PITA. One utility I miss is that the search function in the plant list is not fixed on the top of the list. It is not accessible when you scroll down.

[Linea_Norway]

I couldn't resist to buy a paper garden planner book. It is called "A year in the garden.". I made my own electronic garden planner on a shared electronic document, but I really like using paper, just like my bullet point journal. I hope it will be inspiring to use it.

For the electronc document, I use Google docs, a text file, and added lots of tables and pictures. It became slow and I had to split it into a document for "Trees and berry bushes" and a document for the rest, including planning  tasks. But maybe that part will be replaced by the paper book.

For my vegetable garden, i just made a spreadsheet on the computer and drew in the raised beds that I am planning to build. Than, based on the square foot gardening, I am planning my veggies. Current status is that I have too many of some veggies, so I need to reconsider the plan a bit. I plan to use the paper book to plan and log my actual sowing, rather than in the Google doc.

[ItsALongStory]

Apologies for reviving an old thread but this year I found another online planning tool that has been helpful. I've started using Seedtime which was pitched on a vlog I watched until recently.

Using the free version I mostly value it for timelines between sowing, prepping beds, time to harvest etc. It'll also warn you if you're planning to grow stuff not suitable for your climate based on your selected USDA zone. The paid versions are pretty pricy but for someone growing all of their own veg I'd probably say it's worth it as you can do multiple garden designs, add custom varieties to the DB etc. They even offer a lifetime membership for those interested. It also includes a digital journal where you can keep track of things not covered in the standard features.

[Linea_Norway]

Apologies for reviving an old thread but this year I found another online planning tool that has been helpful. I've started using Seedtime which was pitched on a vlog I watched until recently.

Using the free version I mostly value it for timelines between sowing, prepping beds, time to harvest etc. It'll also warn you if you're planning to grow stuff not suitable for your climate based on your selected USDA zone. The paid versions are pretty pricy but for someone growing all of their own veg I'd probably say it's worth it as you can do multiple garden designs, add custom varieties to the DB etc. They even offer a lifetime membership for those interested. It also includes a digital journal where you can keep track of things not covered in the standard features.

Thank you for the link.
I don't think reviving old threads is a bad thing, if the subject is still equally relevant.

I first installed the Seedtime app on a ipad, but is was in small format, phone size. Then I tried to install it on my android phone and couldn't find it in Goggle play. Then I opened it in the web browser on the ipad and that works, although I did get a warning to upgrade Safari, which I didn't.

When I added my address in Norway, it showed some US hardiness zone, 7b. The dates it showed for last frost date match more or less what I used this year. The last frost date in the app was May 3. I have earlier always used May 17, but this year, in this new garden, I actually used May 1, maybe because it has such a mild sea climate and the weather forecast was very mild.

I tried the Seedtime calender and could add two varieties that I grew this year. When I have more time, I will test it more to see if it can replace my excel sheet planning. A proper tool should be earier to modify many time than an excel sheet full of coloured boxes. And maybe it can also count the number of plants automatically for me.

This year I am using the paper planner for journalling, and I really like that. I already ordered a new one for next year, from another brand.

[Linea_Norway]

Again reviving this thread. This year I am using a "Garden Journal" and I don't like it.
It is in smallish format, which I did like about it. But each month has a task page with tiny boxes to write is. And not far enough space for a busy month. Also, the journalling pages are one single page for a whole week, with only 3-4 lines to write notes.
Fifty pages of the book are for specific plants (perennials). I am not sure I need those, but I am starting to use them. The book also has a number of pages reserved for glueing in the seed bags. I renamed the title of those pages to something more useful, as there are not enough pages for notes. I do like the design pages.

I have been reviewing garden planner and journals over and over again and have not found the ideal one. Therefore, for next season, I ordered an ordner and loose pages, both blanks, lined and dotted, in B5 format.
My plan is to have a task sheet with larges boxes for each month. It is easy to add an extra sheet in between when I have more tasks.
For journalling I have decided to use the dotted pages and just create an entry when I need one. Then I don't need to reserve all that space for days that I don't work in the garden. Just like a (travel) diary.
And as the pages as loose and can be rearranged, I can change my mind about organization later.
I have only noticed that when drawing the sheets and all those boxes, I need to do that 12 times and that is a lot of work.

[RetiredAt63]

I moved everything to the computer.  Between office libre's version of Word and excel I can track everything. I  can write 2 pages of notes and then nothing for a few weeks.  I can comment on how things are doing throughout the season.   I can record weather.  I can pop suggestions into a future gardening document. I can do planting diagrams in excel. I can copy my online seed orders into the journals.  The possibilities are endless.

For me this was a turnaround,  it made things so easy to track.  No paper journal limitations.