Getting organised for sowing

[Trix]

I don't want to grow these this year:

green zebra

Would you mind sharing the reason - is it just colour or something else? I wanted these this year but ordered red zebra seeds (as a compromise - my partner wants red toms!) They look fantastic!

[alldigging]

Would you mind sharing the reason - is it just colour or something else? I wanted these this year but ordered red zebra seeds (as a compromise - my partner wants red toms!) They look fantastic!

I grew the green ones and black krim a two years ago.
It was really hard to tell when they were ready for picking. That doesn't mean I wouldn't grow them again> they were interesting.

[mothhawk]

So if you want to sow 30 different toms, will you have one plant of each, or do you sow 3 or 4 seeds of each, and they all grow, so you keep them all?

I have a spreadsheet listing all my seeds, with the earliest sowing date and latest sowing date indoors/outside, that I can print out and keep in the seed tins for easy reference. Then I just keep a diary of when I sowed what seed, sprouting date, planting out date and so on.

[Lumpy]

I use one of the extra large red and white calenders with the blank page stuck to the pantry wall. This way I can write on the blank page what needs to go in on the month below it and keep track of when I threw some seeds in.

[marcofez]

Allotment Heaven: Vegetable planting calendar
I came across this planting calendar while enjoying this blog and will be using it on my allotment. I have added and taken away veg to suit. Hope you find it a help.

[KevinM67]

I use a spreadsheet and then I can sort it alphabetically, same order as the seed packets in my tin, to enter Sow / Plant / Harvest dates and so on, and then sort by Sow Date for an action calendar. I make duplicate rows for successional sowing reminders.

I must admit Kristen - I had a nosey at your spreadsheet from a previous thread and found it superb. I will be adapting a version for my own use this year.

I hope you don't mind my plagiarism.

[Kristen]

The drawback was that having worked out what I was going to plant tended to start sowing to early even though I had it all written down.

For me that's a key benefit of Spreadsheet-over-paper. My Spreadsheet has the date I intend to sow (indeed, several rows for successional things) and an actual date. So if I sow early (or late) I don't have to thumb through the diary to try to find the entry and mark it up, and any "gaps" in the column for "Sown on date" which are past-due, or coming-up, nudge me to get on with it!

A concertina-file would also work for me, although I have a lot of seed packets. My spreadsheet sow-on dates are basically 1st or 15th of the month - no point having specific days as it doesn't happen like that in practice, and I don't need to-the-week granularity in planning either. Sowing gets done about twice a month, somewhere near 1st and 15th. So a concertina-file, or a system of small shoe-boxes, or even rubber bands and a header-sheet indicating the date, would do me and mimic my spreadsheet.

After sowing I would then decide if the packet was done for the season, or if there were more successional sowings, and I would move it to that box/band/pile!. The done ones, with seeds left, could go in the next-year box, and the empty packets in the "re-order" box. I would write on the packet the date sown etc. (the spreadsheet would also tell me when pricked out / planted / harvested, I can't see myself doing that with packets as I wouldn't know which "pile" any specific packet was in.

I hope you don't mind my plagiarism.

Hehehe ... certainly not! I put it up there specifically hoping it would help folk, pleased to hear it may be of some interest to you

If you sell your version then you can expect a knock on the door from my copyright lawyers

[emzgogo]

I have just got some air tight storages boxes from poundland and will put jan-dec in and slowly work through them according to sow time x