How do you plan your sowing ?

I only have a small yard and certainly not the challenges others here have but I still need tools to remind me of planting times.

I tried to organize myself by keeping my seed packets in date of sowing order but kept shuffling the packets when reading the instructions.

Now I have one of those small spiral bound calendars to help me. Every year when I get the new one, I write the hours of daylight on it at two week intervals and the same for the average temperatures. I then write in start dates for my various seeds.

Does this ever become something that can be done from memory? I feel like I need cheat sheets and have no business playing in the dirt !

If I hadn't looked at the calendar today I would have forgotten to sow some strawberry seeds a dear friend sent me

 

Hi Lori,

I may be a bit simplistic but I just sow as and when I've got the room.

All my seeds are in a Tupperware box with the ones that need early sowing on top of the pile.
The annuals will probably all get done within a two week period in March and then I do perennials from May to July.

 

I don't grow much from seed. Purely because I find it too tedious in the early stages. But for the limited range of stuff I do grow from seed, I mostly go with my gut. I sow indoors in January if it's going in the grow cupboard, late February if not, but it is something that can survive brief spells of winter as a seedling. March gets skipped. Everything that doesn't fit the above criteria gets down in late April or early May.

 

I grow all my plants by the Biodynamic Calender

 

@CanadianLori , I think you do need a planting plan . Your calendar seems to be ideal for jotting down what and when I use an Excel spreadsheet to plan my seed and rhizome sowing dates and conditions . I log the daylight hours on it as well - 9 hours at my 53.5N latitude this weekend ,it's getting noticeably lighter !
Going to Google Jiffys Biodynamic Calender now , whatever it is !

 

Just looked up the biodyamic calendar, Jiffy.

@Jiffy , At first glance it appears that there are two crop sowing entries for each month which indicate above or below ground plants. I can add this data to my little calendar but I think I will read the article that accompanied it first so that I understand why I am doing this. Thanks for sharing. This is where I found the article/calendar pages.
http://www.bachbiodynamics.com/planting-calendar-research.html

@HarryS a spreadsheet sounds like a good idea too. I use very large complicated ones to run calculations/quoting functions for my business and they are of my own architecture so coming up with a spreadsheet for seed sowing would be simple and helpful. Good idea, thank you.

 

@clueless1 what is a grow cupboard? Pardon my ignorance....

 

In my case, it's an old cupboard donated to me by a friend, in which I've fitted a 12 watt heat mat of the kind meant for reptile tanks, and a 15 watt LED grow light array that despite its low power use, gives seedlings just the right bandwidth of light needed for photosynthesis.

The net result is a microclimate that mimics early spring.

 

That is so cool. Thanks for the explanation

 

There's photos and parts lists in a thread on here somewhere if I remember right. Might be a nightmare to find though, as its at least 3 year old by now I think.

 

I sow nothing outside because of the climate and my sandy soil, so everything is started in my electric propagator. That can prove difficult when there are a number of seeds that need to be started at the same time, but I then go on germination times.

My seeds are in date order of when they should be sown and most will be started around the beginning of March. Exceptions are those that either have long germination times or those that are slow to grow on. These I keep separately and I have reminders to start those off earlier on my computer calendar. I also have calendar reminders for seeds that have been stratifying in the fridge for several weeks.