Char's Gardening"As the Garden Grows, so does the Gardener"

I thought I would give a little update on how my garden is growing.  In my post What I Did This Weekend I built raised beds for my square foot garden.  It’s been about three weeks and I am quite pleased with the results.  The big tomato plants I bought, the rest were started from seeds.

I know, there is a lot of open space in my beds.  This is because I am anxiously awaiting the time to finally plant my first fall crop.  Most of my fall seedlings have grown enough to place in pots.  I have moved them outside onto my potting bench with a shade cloth curtain in front to protect them from the hot sun.   My plan is to start more fall seeds in about 2 weeks in hopes of having a continuous fall crop.

Yay, my order of seeds from Heirloom Seeds came in the other day.  I have been doing a lot of research for my new square foot garden.  Until this becomes second nature, where I know this information, I wanted to have a reference, without having to drag my books out or go to the North Florida Gardening website.   I decided to make a spreadsheet.  Below is a list of the information I wanted to know:

1.  What seeds I have.

2.  When to plant them (spring and fall).

3.  How many days to mature.

4.  How many weeks to mature (I divided days by seven and rounded up or down).

5.  How many plants per square.

6.  What year I bought the seed.

7.  The brand of the seed.

8.  The date I planted the seed.

9.  The date the plant was transplanted into the garden.

10. The date I picked the first fruit.

By keeping all this information I hope to make my life easier in the long run.  I made three seperate sheets, warm season veggies, cool season veggies, and herbs.  I bought a few herb seeds but have never tried growing them from seed, but that is a story for another post.   It took some time to make the sheets, but I think I will be very glad I did it.  Below I have a picture of what one page looks like.

Warm Season Veggies Spreadsheet