I think most of us have been using the MS Office suite while some use the pencil and paper method. I think the beauty of pencil and paper to me seems to be that I can carry it with me in the garden. Because I have small ones, papers get lost here pretty easily. So, I put alot of it on excel. Might be good to mention here that I type 88 wpm, so it's no hardship to put all that data in.

carolynp, Whew - no, I wouldn't think so at 88 wpm. Mine will be a bit more of a challenge... so that got me thinking that I would need to get this organized to keep track of planting times/placement. I am so ready for spring!!!! Have you ever ordered from Gurney's Seed?

nanny2008, Google Sketch Up is a general-purpose graphics package. It is powerful, easy to use and free.

carolynp, you will never see me with a spreadsheet in the garden. I use a graphical representation of what I want to do, to help me think. However, it will never leave the computer.

John

Here is a link that might be useful: Johns Journal

I use Excel and print it out to take it with me.

John, Thank you, I am very impressed...love the 3D...hum, easy you say...I will give it a look see...may be a bit challenging for me.

sinfonian, Thank you also. I too prefer to have a reference to look over.

Oooh Nanny, the others would have warned you, lol. I'm a big Baker's Creek fan (rareseeds.com). They send the package promptly. They charge fair postage. They always send as many or more seeds than they promise. AND they always send an extra package of seeds.
I will also say (before Angela and Medo get here) that the round robin seed exchange on gardenweb has some really nice seed swaps going on. I was thinking the other day that a typical package of watermelon seeds comes with 20-25 seeds. No one is going to grow ten watermelon plants of the same thing, so you might as well swap em to get your cucumbers...does that make sense? In any case, it becomes very addicting, lol.

carolynp, Thank you, I will check out your suggestions - yes, it is definitely addicting...but you have to admit, there is nothing more soothing than gardening - the rewards are endless!!!

Hi - I did something different this year in planning my garden. I used Corel Draw to make a templete of the garden beds. After printing it, I laminated it. I used a permanent ink marker to write down were I'm planting everything. If I don't like the placement, it easily wipes off with alcohol(or water with some harder scrubbing). Now I can take it out in the garden at planting time without getting it too messed up.

That's a good idea, I think!

Use Kitchen garden aid. Its free and simple. Keeps track of companion planting and crop rotation. Requires Java 6.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/kitchengarden/