[jaffab]

This may sound an odd question - but, what do others use for recording details about plants (veg, flowers and trees), to build up their yearly calendar?

I am not explaining myself very well, let me give some context.

So we have veg and flower seeds, and we have a system - get the seeds in Nov/Dec, sort them by sowing date, plan the seeds by location and density, sow,  when they are ready - pick.   All nice and simple.

But add garden plants - and all the 'loves chalky soil' and 'cut back in decemeber' or the 'dont cut back to spring'.
Add fruit trees - with pruning differences, varieties etc.

It all starts to get a bit complex to remember what plant likes what.

We have tried the free web apps that are available from suttons seeds - and its good and all.  But I see that there is a new kickstarter for a seeding recording system which deals with a plant calendar but no (current) layout or 'maintenance' (for pruning) calander.

So, what do others do?  Paper?  A combination of systems?  Look it all up in the books?  Treat all shrubs the same?

Advice?  Pointers?  Web links.

Thanks all

[Fleecewife]

I don't have an organised system, more a combination.  Much of it is somewhere in my head, stuff my Dad taught me, stuff I've picked up over the (many) years from a variety of gardens and growing conditions, the main thing is that I keep a diary in which I record sowing and harvesting dates, plus varieties used, sometimes notes such as 'don't grow next year', or 'scrummy', extremes of weather, last and first frosts.  In additon I keep a plain notebook in which I write sporadically about what's happening in the garden, what the year plan is, what the weather trends have been and what has been done each month.  I don't record exact harvest amounts, but I give a general idea of what worked and what didn't, possibly a reason.  I also draw a map of planting areas and what was grown where, for some sort of rotation plan.
When it comes to January, I start watching videos, reading my magazines and books and generally stirring my memory as to what to do when.
What I don't do though is to listen to anyone else's timings such as 'sow Feb-Apr', harvest 'Jun-Sept', because where I live now has its own rules and habits, and they rarely accord with the norm from further south, or other folks pests and diseases - we have our own specialities such as sheep eating all the gooseberries, and the poultry having to live in the polytunnel during Bird Flu lockdown.
I don't think I would use an app, especially one giving typical sow-by dates, for the reasons above.  My haphazard way seems to work for me, all I have to do is look back through the past few years' diaries and I'm set 

[Q]

I use a spreadsheet.
It has all the varieties of the things I have planted / like to plant broken into categories(ie brassicas etc)
Each one has a sowing period and my own comments.
I use it to look at what I have grown over the years and where I have grown it.
Its easy to check to see which seeds I have and what need to buy.
if i sort the list by sowing period i can tell what to do this week/month.
It would be absolutely no use to anyone else I wouldn't have thought.
I like the information which shows I grow over 100 different things throughout the year although I do include the tree and bush fruit with that.
I'm sorry if thats no help whatsoever apart from discovering a little pedantry in the suburbs.

[Backinwellies]

get a calender ..... write on it everything you do ..... next year you have a complete growers guide to your garden....'SIMPLES'

[chrismahon]

I only keep records for the veg. Plan showing the beds, which are lettered. List of what was planted in each bed each year. List of when things went in, so I can see what I should be doing. Records throughout the year of exactly what was bought from where and how it was planted, how good it was and when it was lifted and when we needed to fleece for frosts or put debris netting up for hail.


The shrubs and trees are just done on an 'as necessary' basis.

[Possum]

I'm with Fleecewife - I use an old desk diary. I record things such as when I need to plant seeds, what fertiizer to use and when, which things need pruning. Also when I actually did all those things, which isn't always when I had planned to do them.


Spreadsheets come in handy for a rotation plan in the veg patch and polytunnel.

[doganjo]

I'm not that organised.  I sew and plant and if it grows good, if not I note the name and don't grow it again

[arobwk]

Calendar (with large writing area per day or tiny hand-writing - Lol) and/or desk diary are, it seems to me, quite decent options.  However, I would also say that a spreadsheet would be more flexible if one can be bothered to set up.

I haven't done this yet, but if one put plant names (randomly) vertically in one column and then had one's key planting/harvesting factors in other columns and work out a consistent code for entries, it would be possible to "sort" your columns according to what you want to know, e.g. what to do in each week of the year and then maybe whether it went well or needs to be reconsidered for the coming year.  (Much as suggested by Q)

Examples (slashes = columns):  Plant (name) / Seed (S) or Plug (P) - could be 2 separate columns / Week of sowing or planting - 1 to 52) / Indoor or Outdoor (I or O) / Planting out week for indoor propagated stock / Take (Good = G, Iffy = I, Poor/failed/slugs!  = P / First harvest Week / Last harvest Week / Harvest result (Good = G, Iffy = I, Poor = P / Comment-action for next year.
If repeat sowing/planting over a period, add a line entry for each repeat to enable a direct comparison between the success of successive plantings.

Of course, depends on how happy one is with spreadsheets and ways of sorting their entries by various criteria. 

(I use free version of the LibreOffice suite of office app's - fully functional and, as far as I can tell, pretty-much equal to MS Office.  If you have not come across it, it has Writer, Calc, Database and other MS Office-like app's and is compatible with MS Office - it can read and can be simply tweaked to produce/save files in MS Office file formats.)

[Q]

get a calender ..... write on it everything you do ..... next year you have a complete growers guide to your garden....'SIMPLES'

This is a great idea but looking back to last year I don't remember planting any 'Mothers Day UK'   

[Backinwellies]

get a calender ..... write on it everything you do ..... next year you have a complete growers guide to your garden....'SIMPLES'

This is a great idea but looking back to last year I don't remember planting any 'Mothers Day UK'   

took me a minute..... but ...  

[arobwk]

As regards the spreadsheet option:  trees, shrubs and ornamentals could be added with different key activity columns (e.g. pruning, splitting etc etc), but probably best to have non-food plants on a separate sheet to avoid 'too many' columns.