QUESTION: As we expand our garden, especially the food garden, we would like to start keeping records of plans, plantings, and seeds. Is there a simple way?
ANSWER: At about this time in the year, I set up the new year's garden record book in a lined, coil-spine school notebook with enough pages to accommodate several years of records.
Plans: I begin with a few pages to hold plans for the growing season. Here, I sketch the vegetable plots and begin pencilling in the placements of the crops I want to grow, which are listed along the side of the page and checked off as they are placed. I'll also jot down plans for the annual flower plots and note major container plantings I intend to make.
Seeds: Next comes a seed inventory with vertical lists of seeds on hand by their month of sowing, which is also how I store the seeds, in envelopes according to their planting month.
I list lettuces separately, at the beginning of the inventory listings, because most are sown several times, in succession, from late winter to late summer. I list them by type -- romaine, butterhead, and so on.
Making an inventory of leftover seeds to be used again eliminates duplicate purchases.
Purchases: The third section is for dated seed orders and local purchases. I list each ordered item with its page number in the catalogue. As orders arrive, I record the date of delivery and check off each item. This record is useful when I forget the source for a particular variety of flower or vegetable. It's easy to go back over past purchases to find the information.
-- Canwest News Service
