Where are my fellow spreadsheet geeks? 🙋🏽♀️ This is how I stay organized with WAY too many varieties of food
I grow A LOT of things throughout my acre, 84 varieties this years, not including the hot lovers in the greenhouse. I'd rather grow 12 diff squash than 3 of one kind, etc, etc. I have no 'veggie' garden per say (no big square off by itself), my veggies are worked into sections of my landscape, some in ground, some in raised beds. My plan 6 years ago was to landscape and plant 2/3 of the property, leaving 1/3 for the animals/ shop. Then #Gardenmath #crazyplantlady happened.
2 yrs ago I added a chicken garden. Last year I added a 12x3' raised bed on the driveway by my shop, a new bed by the compost & added a hammock /vining arbor to an existing raised bed. There were no more sunny spots and I was DONE, nothing else could be added. WHEW...
THEN in Dec my new neighbor cut down a slew of 70' trees on the south-east side of my property as a fire break. Well hello ☀ This bed below is my first plan, adding another 72sq feet to my garden plus 80' of vertical space. My seed shopping cart exploded, lol.
I always expect to lose 20% of my crop to animals and want to have enough to give away, so I plant a LOT in many areas over my acre. Because of so many crops I heavily rely on companion planting and crop rotation so I have to spend less time on the day to day maintenance. Serious spreadsheet action was now required to manage it! It's a work in progress, I'm open to feedback and questions. I've tried SO MANY APPS and nothing I found allowed me to do all these things. If you know of one that does, even a pay type, please inbox me!! I must own that.
FEATURES
The types of plants are broken out by families for easy crop rotation.
Plants are noted by season in first column (I used light red and blue for hot and cool season, purple for things I grow in both)
HLB - Soil Nutrient Needs - Heavy, Light, Builders
pot up dates, plant dates - Obv adjust to your location! A dash (-) for pot up date means I go straight to ground. NOTE: if you're new to gardening, note that not everything needs to be seeded indoors. Often you don't save any actual time and seedlings can suffer with not enough lights.
Pot up, plan dates - I adjust each year, especially when it's a plant new to me. I'm zone 5b although I get into ground soon with plastic draping. I was eating corn last July
Dates to maturity - take from your seed pkg
Companion plants - # blanket the area with this plant, X - avoid planting together, Y - other great plants
I use the notes app on my phone for additional 'on the fly' details. I log the date and what I see in the garden, what I'm harvesting when, etc. I tried remembering year to year, that didn't go well. lol
Below are the links for excel or google sheets version, basically a template you can download & edit for your own needs. NOTE - there a section off to the right that you may want to realize is there before you delete rows. I list all my 'beds' and my rotation plan, so it's quick and easy to have an overview of what's going where.
Google Sheets Version Excel Version (in Dropbox)
Happy Growing, Cooking & Eating!
XO Dana K
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