Most successful gardeners love bragging about how they work their magic. Short answer – dig dirt, stick seeds in, see what grows and what doesn’t, repeat as necessary, adjusting as you go.īetter short answer – Find neighbor with awesome garden. Grow Tomatoes from Seed – Save Money, Get More Varieties.
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How to Use Companion Planting in the Garden.10 Heirloom Seed Companies You Don't Want to Miss.Starting Seeds Indoors – 11 Steps to Help You Plant Seeds with Confidence.
Leave a comment and share your thoughts, and don’t forget to share the link with your gardening friends. I'd love to hear how you keep track of things in your garden, and what questions I can answer in Common Sense Gardening posts and classes. Don’t stress over your gardening journal details so much that you forget to enjoy your garden. (You can check out the Weekly Weeder series to find out more.)Īnything you can do to make garden record keeping easier will make it more likely to happen. This includes a lot more weeds than you might realize. What about weeds? Some of those are allowed to survive, too, especially those that are edible and/or medicinal. What if volunteer plants show up in the garden? Some of them are allowed to survive, provided I don’t need the space for another crop. One year I put together a slide show of the central garden wheel through the season, which was pretty cool. I fill out my spreadsheets, scratch some notes in my garden binder, and take photos of the garden at regular intervals. It's a well written book, but not for me. (The book Square Foot Gardening is a good resource for intensive planting. If you want to get super organized, you can get out your graph paper and the plant spacing chart and closely map your beds before planting. Concentrate on the Garden Information that’s Most Useful to You Use them at your own risk.Īfter decades of gardening, it’s been my experience that the only guarantees you have for production are that it changes every year. There are plenty of resources that will tell you exactly how much to plant to get a certain amount of vegetables. The more you work in your garden, the more you’ll get a feel for how much space you need and how much of a fruit or veggies you use. When I'm dealing with larger transplants, I use the whole stick. Each stick can be broken in half to mark two containers (when the plants are still tiny). When I’m working with seedlings inside, I use craft sticks to label the containers. In addition to the gardening journal pages listed above, I like label, bundle and draw to help track my garden progress. (Or you can plant thickly to compensate and hope for the best.) More Easy Garden Record Keeping Tips If germination rates suddenly drop off or time to first seedling emerges increases noticeably, it’s probably time for new seed. I find this handy for monitoring older seed. The Seed Purchase Log helps you track you seed orders, listing the variety, seed company, catalog number, purchase date, number of packets, price and seeds per packet.įinally, the Planting and Germination Record includes: When you enter your frost dates, these calendars adjust to your area. The Customizable Seed Sowing Schedule is for outdoor seed sowing based on last and first frosts of the season. The Seed Starting and Transplanting Calendar is for indoor seed sowing. The chart assumes garden beds that are 3-4 feet across. There will be some variation depending on the plant varieties you choose (some plants grow intentionally smaller to make them better suited for container growing).
The Plant Spacing Chart shows the minimum distance between plants in a row and between rows.
If you’d like to get an overview of these sheets, you can visit … The Seed Germination After Storage shows the expected percent germination of seeds after storage, along with best temperature for germination and days to germination. Your results may vary (I’ve had tomato seeds in storage for 10 years that were still good), but it’ll give you an idea if your leftover seed is still good. The Seed Longevity Chart shows how long garden seeds are likely to remain viable when stored in cool, dry conditions. How to Use the Common Sense Home Garden Planning Kit You'll also get regular updates throughout the year with gardening and food preservation tips in our weekly newsletter, and the opportunity to share your ideas for upcoming gardening courses.
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(There are also instructions on the download page for those who are using Macs or don’t have Excel, but would still like the version that they can edit.) The templates are available as an MS Excel workbook and printable PDF.