A few weeks ago I met Sandra, one of the allotment newcommers, she is doing simply stunning things with her allotment, mostly involving lots of digging and sifting to remove the weed roots. In amongst our conversation she mentioned that she has all her seeds organised in an index card box so that she knows exactly what to sow and when. So despite her lack of experience Sandra is more likely that me to have successional crops and a year round supply of veg.
You see, I love buying seeds and I love raising as many of my plants from seed as possible but one thing I am terrible at is the organisation of it all. It isn't uncommon for me to rummage through my seed box in Septermber and find several packets of seed which should have been sown in Spring or early Summer, just sitting there un-opened. Last year I completly forgot to sow my winter brassicas, the seeds were there but they just slipped my mind until it was too late and I was forced to buy some plants from the garden centre.
I have a lot of seeds so I know an Index Card box won't work, and anyway I tend to leave packets of seed in my pockets and scattered around the shed so I needed another way. The recent cold and rainy weather drove me to my computer and I am now the proud owner of a seed sowing guide. Each packet of seeds is listed on my spreadsheet and then placed into sowing groups for each weekend. As they are sown I mark them off so that I know what I did and didn't manage to sow each weekend. The idea is that any missed sowings can easily be moved to the next sowing weekend and successional sowings are scheduled in throughout the year. So far things are going well and despite running out of seed compost (schoolboy error at this time of year) the sowings are mostly on target.
So my geeky solution seems to be working for me, but how to you manage your seeds?
4 comments:
I have made many seed-sowing spreadsheets over the years, but not even that is enough to get me organised! But I think I get a little bit better each year... I think keeping up with the rest of you bloggers helps a lot - it motivates me to think that I can post on the blog each time I do something new, and I see what other people are up to and it jogs my memory to do things I haven't done yet! :)
I keep all mine in a shoe box, roughly divided into sections according to when they should be sown. Every so often I go through and check I haven't missed any. I also have a written schedule which I check from time to time. Seemples!
Nome I totally agree, although it does give me sowing panic from time to time but that might be a good thing.
Rachael, I can only envy your organisation! I am particulary impressed that you go through it and check you're up to date. I should probably be doing that with my spreadsheet...but I bet I don't.
Seed sowing spreadsheets, No need - thats what the blog is for. Just check back to last year and see what you need to adjust! I know hwta your mean about the running, it seems to eat up your life before you know it. (Ive been half marathon training) Want to trade blog Rolls?
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