As long as you find it manageable, it looks good to me. I just use MS Word and keep a running garden log, starting a new file for each year. I can use my Palm pilot to make notes, while in the garden, and copy and paste them into the log. I write down anything and everything which strikes me of interest. This method isn't as methodical as what you are proposing. But I like it. Hopefully you can report on how this works for you, after a full season.

George
Tahlequah, OK

Good idea, I like the notes type of approach as well, it seems more personal. I wonder if I could tie both methods together somehow.

Gee, I'm more interested in keeping information in the beginning than production records unless I'm concerned about growing enough of a particular vegetable.

So my records include the dates of seeding, the ambient highs and lows and soil temps, rainfall, anticipated last spring and first fall frost dates, the dates of seed breakthrough, where they go after that (inside or outside), projected harvest dates (and actual), and anything else that pertains to their growth.

I keep all this information in Excel files, including my garden layout, as well as fertilizer and other nutrient needs for each crop.

That list looks pretty thorough, and I can see how harvest quantity and taste would be important in the middle of winter next year, when you are trying to decide which varieties of tomatoes or peppers to order seeds for. If you grew a lot of different types, it would be hard to remember how each one performed several months later.

The only information I have on my germination chart that is not on your list is height. I have a very small garden, and this information is helpful when trying to determine placement of each plant, so that everything gets enough sunlight.

Bonnie

add germination date. it'd important to know for timing when to plant going forward.

I also break out harvest date into:
expected harvest date
actual harvest date

sometimes they can vary.

good comments would be "needs support" or "use row covers"

lastly, my primary key for sorting is "next action date"
whatever I need to do next, whether it be germination, planting outside, fertilize, harvest, I enter expected date for that next action. I also code the task, i.. G for germination, F for fertilization, H for harvest. etc

really lastly, I track bugs too, first sighting year to year, that way I can plan for the attack.

really really lastly... I track last/first frost last/first freeze dates for early /late plantings..

What I did was get my ideas from download.come under hobbies I believe. They all want money but they do have a trial period. I downloaded them got what I wanted and deleted them off my HD within an hour.Made my own Excel sheet.

I track bugs too,

Excellent point! - you need a column for Pest & Disease Problems with subcats of date onset, RX used, and effect. (That is unless you are planning on not having any pest or disease problems. ;)

Dave

Well, I for one am not planning on having any pest or disease problems. :-)

But yes, pests and diseases should be recorded, just so you know what you did about them, if it worked, and what part of the garden they "infected".

How about weight?

In my informal note taking, for instance, I noticed that all my corn had matured and dried down WAY before temps here started to cool down in the fall (and we have a good long mild fall). So, after checking the date of my latest planting of corn I made a note to remind myself that I could plant corn at least three weeks later than I had. Then, later, when I sat down and calculated an actual date, I made a note on my Palm calendar, to remind myself for the coming year. This is the sort of thing I would never remember if I just relied on memory.

George

My inlaws weigh everything that comes in from the garden and count things like ears of corn. Gives them a good gauge of how things produced.

Just from a design perspective, I found keeping harvest date and quantity records in columns to get kind of unwieldy after a point. I had something like 180 harvest days or more, which led to too many columns. I started keeping the harvest record in rows and it made the spreadsheet a lot more user-friendly.

Ed

To me the logs that one would create would depend on what one wanted to learn - When to plant seeds?, When to set plants? What varieties do best?, Which varieties became diseased? What spacing is best?, What locations in the garden are best for each vegetable, How much did my garden produce?, etc.

Back in the 1980's I had kept a detailed production spreadsheet-type log. My garden then was about 400 sq ft. (Amazing how much one can get from a small garden.) Now that it is a bit over 2000 sq ft it's far too much trouble to keep upt with this. So my new format is to record lessons learned, sort of a "do's and don'ts" type log. This has been much easier process to keep up with. I do however sometimes find that my lessons learned are not cast in stone. Meaning, what worked or did not work one year might have the opposite results the following year...which is one of the attributes that makes gardening a "fun" hobby. So I routinely find myself updating my log.

Y'all better hope no non-gardeners see this thread. Nobody charts hourly temperatures and wind velocity? Nerds? Slackers?

You need more hobbies. Man (or woman) does not live by gardening alone.

I must be one of the slackers. I write (with a pen) in a paper notebook, either when I'm in the garden or before I leave, since I live a couple miles away. I include all the sowing/harvesting data as I go. The past 2 years, I've counted my harvest for most things, especially tomatoes, and was hoping to find a cheap scale so I can weigh them this year, even though that'll complicate things because I do a lot of grazing. Having a record of the numbers of each does give me a sense of when the harvest peaks for each variety. For my hand-drawn summary tomato table in my garden journal, two years ago I tallied harvests in 3-day increments, and last year in 1-week increments.

One important datum I always include is SOURCE of seeds or plants. For the source, I include both the seed company or grower and the nursery where I bought them.

Over the past few years, the plants that did the worst (or that didn't thrive at all, or that were mislabeled) came from either a chain nursery or a plant sale ("master" gardeners) where I assume the plants did not get consistent care (extremes of temperature, inconsistent watering, etc.). So now I know that if I'm tempted by $1.29 heirloom tomato plants in February, they usually won't be worth the trouble. Still, one of the two I planted last Feb. did fine, and I did spring for a Caspian Pink this week. I also know that if I'm tempted by the large selection at a plant sale, I'd do better to shop at local nurseries and limit myself to 2 or 3 at the plant sale. (Or, this year, plant from seed.)

All good ideas so far. Please feel free to keep them coming.

Here is what I am planning so far. I still will be storing my data in a spreadsheet, but now I have more column then will print on a piece of paper in landscape format.

I am organizing my data into three sections widthwise as plant/purchase information, then planting information, and then harvest information. Each section will print out on a separate piece of paper. I plan on putting them into a three ring binder for easy of carrying to garden.

thanks,
Dean

I did not see it mentioned, but if you buy seed from several sources, you may want to note the seed source.

My suggestions - simplify ;)

I was very ambitious and had a spreadsheet and website and the whole 9 yards.. inputing data online from the garden with my blackberry. crazy.

Focus on your garden and what's important. You'll find this naturally happens anyway as your working with what you've setup.. it will evolve to what's useful and you'll get rid of what isn't.

Most important for me was knowing when something was planted, having a to-do list so I know what needed to be done, and tracking where I planted them (for rotational purposes in the future).

A simple but nice little set of charts (especially for seeing how your garden does in dollars & cents) is this from Iowa State Extension (pdf, 4 pages).

It was designed for 4-H garden projects.

Steve

IÂm a multiple personality garden tracker. I keep an Excel spreadsheet for data like seed start, transplant, first and last harvest date, DTM, varieties, seed source and harvest quantities. I also keep a Garden Journal as an ongoing Word document for the year. I record my trials and tribulations here as well as my impressions of taste, any new techniques IÂve tried, my successes and failures, major weather events, etc. IÂve been doing it this way for about 12 years. Before that I kept a manual spreadsheet and a handwritten journal. This time of year, I enjoy reviewing my past experiences and formulate my upcoming gardening season game plan accordingly. It keeps me sane until I can get out and dig in the dirt. Well sane may not be the most accurate description considering my gardening obsession but at least it keeps me from turning my living room into a grow room!