Poll: What's your system for keeping track?

How do you keep track of your veggies and herbs? .............

Do put labels in the ground next to each plant?
Keep a diagram or journal of where you planted things?
Depend on your memory/knowledge?

Do you keep a log or journal to remember when you planted seeds/plants so you will know when they should be ready to pick?
Or again, do you just depend on your memory/knowledge?

Any other system for keeping track??

I keep a journal as well as draw diagrams of every bed. No way could I ever depend on my memory. LOL!
You also cannot depend upon the length of time between when you planted a seed until when the produce is ready to pick. The climate factor is what determines when a veggie is ready. If it is cold and rainy the timeframe is extended, for example. Cyndie

My garden is so small I use my memory. It hasn't failed me yet although this year I planted a dozen different tomatoe varities and I used garden tape tied to the cages to write the names on. When they are red they are ready. LOL. Same for peas - when they are fat I pick 'em. If I had more garden and was able to rotate crops I would to keep a log.

Map on the side of the fridge, with a "tomato magnet" holding it up. We have raised beds, so I drew a diagram of the beds and penciled in the names of the various plants and cultivars, so I can always tell the "X" is next to the "Y" type of thing.

Mostly it is a memory thing....especially if only 3 or 4 varieties are concerned. With tomatoes and melons I make a plot map as I have so many of each.

I have my vegetable garden on a spreadsheet for each season. It's how I keep track for crop rotation. Otherwise I pretty much shoot from the hip (much like I handle my life in general).

Usually use home made labels in ground when I plant seed, and a yearly map on large tracing paper of what went where to help rotate certain things. I never keep track of when to pick, if I did plan better I would'nt have had my tomatoes start ripening just when we left for ten day vacation.
I'm really liking Daves for my journal to record varieties I used.

if you look at the garden everyday like i do, it's hard to forget what you planted where etc.
and usually the exceptional stuff you remember anyway. the mediocre doesn't really matter because I'm not gonna re-order it. and if i forget something it's always a pleasant surprise when it does grow.
but i do keep my invoices and when i review those i can say what done well and what i don't remember or done very poorly or died. i've tried labeling, but they just get in the way more than anything.

well, I look at the garden everyday but I am still forgetting things!! I spent too much time digging for bulbs i had already moved. I would rather have little white tags here and there. Flower bed wise.

My memory is pretty poor and getting worse - something to do with getting older? Right now my garden consists of 3 raised beds, each 4 x 8 ft - and a tiny orchard of 6 baby fruit trees. I also am tracking 50 baby trees planted around our property. I am hoping to tripple the garden over the next few years so that I have space to include both vegetables and flowers and maybe some brambles. Here in the high desert, I really can't irrigate the whole dern property or cover all of the sand with compost and mulch, so a raised bed oasis is what I am aiming for. I pretend to be methodical.

I keep a 3 year journal - one volume for each season. I found some bound books at Barns and Nobel where the pages are graph paper. They are about 1 1/2 inches thick. I have one for Mar-Apr-May, one for June-July-Aug, one for Sept-Oct-Nov and one for Dec-Jan-Feb. Each journal is divided into the 3 months. Each month has room for 3 years worth of data and is further divided into Weather, Planting, Harvesting, To Do & Journal.

I really like the fact that the pages are graph paper. Keeps my writing neat, helps me align things that I tape in and helps me draw maps or "dream maps" of my raised beds.

I particularly like tracking the weather. Even if I don't record the actual weather, I try and put in the forecasts - even though they are not acurate in detail, they usually are acurate in trends. I am better at tracking "actuals" when awaiting last frost or first frost - need to know when to run outside with blankets! ... Since our weather here is rather erradic, it is interesting to note that the one thunderstorm a year where we actually got a rain soaking with has happened in the same week two years in a row.

I tape in seed packets (or photos/scans of them), clippings from seed catalogs, some posts from DG, copies of magazine articles or photos that I like. I write down cultivars and where I got them. I make general list of things like (1) what I learned this year (2) cultivars to grow again (3) things to give up on (4) highlights of the year (5) things to try next year.

In addition, I take digital photos and post them on my website: http://kmom246.icfsc.com/index.htm It isn't a very fancy website, but since I live far away from my Mom now, she uses it to check up on me and make sure that I am surviving the High Desert. And it amuses me. In the dead of winter I can look at the photos and dream of spring and summer!

Then, after the 3 years are up, I digitally photograph the pages and combine them into a "PDF" file for future reference.

I like having 3 years of data at one glance. I am transitioning to a new set of 3 years this year and find I am carrying around last years and this years. When changing volumes to a new set of 3 years, I type up certain info for each season, print it out and tape it into the new books. I also transfer items from the "to do" lists from previous years so I have an idea of what needs to be done when.

By my ramblings here, you can probably tell that I am not at a loss for things to fill my journal with. I also rubber stamp into my journal and color them in with colored pencils. I have dried lavender from my work, my old house and "stolen from a garden in Corte Madera" in one of my journals. I have pressed fall maple leaves in another.

I am doing this for two main reasons - (1) some day, when I am older and greyer and the knees don't work so well, and my garden might scale back to being a tomato plant in a 5 gallon bucket, I will be able to look back and relive those glorious days in the garden (2) I have visions of imortality, and perhaps some day a child or grandchild or great grandchild of mine will touch the actual books or read the computer files and get to know me and make me live again. Silly romantic, I know.

I use plastic knives and write name, plant date, and days to harvest with a wax pencil. (found in art or office supply store) I use one marker for each group of same type plant. I write significant things down a few times a week. Have you started planting yet?

plastic knives- like that. then you have a handy supply of tools for small jobs. I have been using up vinyl mini blinds cut into labels- pencil writing on them is very durable. and I can leave all those stubby eraserless pencils all over the yard too.

kmom246,
One of my fears is growing old and losing my memory. I think your goal of having it all down to review is right in line with my thinking about the future. Would you mind sharing your system with me a little more in detail?

I'm growing veggies in EBs, and have started blogging my daily progress. But, Lord help me if there's a power failure and the blog gets zapped from Dave's Garden! No notes of any kind to refer to.

I'd be particularly interested in your "to do" lists for your growing seasons.

I'm in Houston (Zone 9a) and have identified two growing seasons in this area. The Spring garden (seed-starting January 15th, planting out March 15th, harvesting tomatoes by June 15th). Then, for the Fall garden, seed-starting June 15th, planting out Aug 15th, harvesting tomatoes by Nov. 15th, give or take a coupla weeks.

I'm a first-time veggie gardener, and had my first crop of tomatoes (only) last summer. I grew 11 varieties in 5 EBs, and harvested about 20-35? lbs. of maters. I expected far more yield, but the Houston monsoons held most of the Houston crops back last summer, so I've been told it wasn't anything I did wrong.

I took cuttings from the summer mater vines, rooted them, and planted them out on September 1st. It's been 8 weeks, and I have more maters growing in this one month, than I had in 3 months of the summer. NO BUGS! Although I did pick off 5 hornworms in that first week. Didn't have any in the summer.

Anyway, I'm interested in your recordkeeping system. Please send me a d-mail reply. Also, would you mind if I looked at your PDF journal? That would help me alot. Thanks!

Linda

I use wooden markers with the name of the plants written in Sharpie, which manages to wash away over the course of the season, until the marker itself disappears.

I also begin a garden log in a notebook every year and make conscientious entries until about June.

Everything I grow is hand labeled with a non fading black professional felt marker pen on plastic T-labels. On the back of the label I'll put the date of planting especially for my tomatos.

I was using a combination of diagrams and signs but it didn't work for me as we have multiple seasons here and it became confusing after awhile. I also want to start to keep records like yield per bed etc.

So I'm going to write an application that will make this easier for me.

BB

(By the way, I am imagining that Dave has redundancy and backups built into the system so that barring BIG NATURAL DISASTER, there should not be an issue with the website becoming "lost" or "disappearing" any time soon...) Gymgirl, I will DMail you sometime in the near future - I have school today and I'm trying to catch up with all my obligations I've been ignoring for the last several weeks while I've been on business travel. If you don't hear from me within a few days, please holler :-) Happy tomatoes. Nights are dipping into the 20*F range here ... no toms for us right now... but garlic, ah, yes! Garlic is in the ground!

I have tried a variety of plant markers/lables and last spring I came up with one that worked fairly well. Using Excel I printed the information I wanted in a cell about the size of a business card. Printed them off and cut them to size. Then I "laminated" each with 2" wide scotch tape. Then I clued them to a chopstick and stuck them in the ground. They never faded, were relatively water proof and all around durable. If I had'nt put specific dates on them I could have reused them next spring. I also keep a planting diagram along with plant specific information in a binder in the garden shed. That way I don't have to run into the house to retrieve information from the computer. Then I maintain a garden diary here at Dave's for the day to day things.

Edited to add
For my fall garden I have used a Sharpie marker on paint sticks that I got for free from HD. That will work until I have a chance to make the ones I described above.

This message was edited Oct 25, 2007 9:56 AM

I know this sounds strange, but the crows and ravens that have taken up residence near my garden pull up the markers that I put in (plastic tags and popsicle sticks). I guess they thought there might be a seed on the end, as they pull up my beans, peas and corn to eat the seed as soon as a sprout shows above the ground. At first I couldn't figure out why my markers were lying in the path, as I no longer have any toddlers. So I have switched to garden maps and rows of three small stones placed on the ground between different varieties of the same vegetable. The crows don't bother the stones.

I keep an Excel spread sheet of my seed inventory, map the garden and use wooden shims marked with a Sharpie for markers in the rows. I've had critters pull up my plastic tags (crows) and flags (neighbor's danged cattle), but the shims don't seem to attract them so much. I also put the seeding or planting date on the markers like Tplant does. For anything extra special that I want to keep track of, I do a log in MS Word. Anything recorded electronically is religiously backed up to disk.

I know it sounds compulsive, but whatever you plant, LABEL IT, especially if you're making comparisons or saving seed. I don't know how many times I've told myself, "Oh, I'll remember that", then by the end of the season, I couldn't remember which was what for anything!

I have friends who keep an eye out for mini-blinds at thrift shops (and dumpsters) to cut up and recycle into garden markers.

That's a good idea about the mini blinds!

For my tomato plants I use scraps of white vinyl siding cut into 1 x 4 inch tags, then use a permanent marker for labeling. These are fairly thick and should last for years. I just staple one to each stake. Staple them high up or the plants will cover the markers. If you use cages, just punch a hole in each tag and attach with fine wire or a bread 'twister'.

For my other veggies, I usually only plant one variety of each so I can remember them fairly easily.

Red