[DK2021]

Originally Posted by HastingsMN

Thank you all for the good ideas. I use a cheap school notebook too, with a calendar which helps keep my seed starting section on track. Cheap because it tends to get dirt smeared into it. I will start now and make some columns/sections in this year's for the things you all keep track of, maybe that will help me remember to fill things in when I'm out in the garden. I have not tracked the weather up till now because it used to be that we had a fairly regular pattern of about one summer storm per week, which averaged to about an inch of rain per week. Most of my garden rarely had to be watered. But the last two summers it's been much more dry, and last summer we had a severe drought, which started with a week of temperatures above 90 degrees in May which is very abnormal. So I bought a cheap rain gauge and will try to keep track this year.

I used the word "spreadsheet" because that's what someone at the MG meeting called it, and it sounds more professional ha ha, but they're really just tables in Microsoft Word because it's easy to insert additional lines/columns, and there isn't really any math that makes excel necessary. I mostly have lists for what tomato, pepper, corn, cabbage, squash seed I have on hand. I keep track of who the seed came from and when, and when I last saved/planted it, and any notes of performance or problems I remember about it or did actually manage to write down. I also keep track of whether people especially liked them or were more meh, because I want to bring stuff to the food shelf that people will want. Not everybody, including one of my neighbors, likes the "weird" heirloom tomatoes I do for instance, so I've started getting a few more "normal" round red ones for giving away, and the cherries that everyone especially liked. I first made the MS document a few winters ago and now update it in fall and in the winter when I'm ordering seeds, it helps me keep track without having to bring up the seed file box from the basement (and I'm into some historical field corns so I keep them in the freezer).

I don't keep a spreadsheet (yet) though this is the year I am thinking that I really should start one. I would use Excel, not Word, because you can sort through entries much more easily that way. Just my 2 cents.