I was thinking Today while working (oddly I had Slayer (Rein in Blood) blasting the whole time and could still think) about the "garden journal". It occured to me that part of my problem is that I'm not doing it correctly - imagine that! Most seem to state "record planting dates and conditions" and while I was doing that, I thought... well, so what? How do you cross-reference that with the other events that have occurred (e.g. thinning, fertilizing, cultivating, etc.) - how do you pull it all together?
An old idea came back to me - the planting/sowing worksheet. While originally used as a "seed starting log" I'm now thinking it can be extended to be much more; more importantly I'm looking at logging crop lifetime in a whole new way. So the new way would be much more structured (I like that!), consider this:
- You make a new entry (row) on the crop lifetime record (this could be a single row in a spreadsheet or I'm also considering an entire page) to get things started. This row would also have a unique numerical ID (+1 from the previous ID, simple increment)
- You fill out a crop stake including the ID from the log and place it in the bed/row where you have sown/planted - this established an absolute 1:1 relationship between that crop and the log
- As events and changes happen you update the crop record in the log, for example when a new crop emerges you would record the date. Another example might be the first thinning. You get the idea - the nice thing here is that all the data is in a single place, I don't need to try and remember what page, 30, 50, 90 pages back I entered the original planting information
- Continue recording events ending finally with harvest dates and notes
The virtues of this approach (which is new for me, perhaps not for others) is that I can see the entire lifetime of that crop on a single linear presentation of data - this makes analysis and decision making much more simple than trying to combine data from various sources, pages, etc.
Looking forward I could also imagine using events entered into the log as triggers to mark future events in a calendar - for when I record emergence of carrots and know that I want to thin and mulch in 15 days I can make an entry in my calendar and then review the calendar daily. Structure! - just what I need to pull this all off.
Of course if anyone reading this is a software engineer you will see what I've done here, this is practically a Use Case for a crop management software application. Just think!:
- Running aggregate reports grouped on plant type, bed location, etc.
- Automatic recording of current weather conditions
- Reminders, Outlook integration
- Per-Crop rules (and rule engine) - "EmergenceEvent Logged" enqueues a "ThinAndMulch" event in 15 days. Completion of "ThinAndMulch" event lines up a "FinalThin" event in another 15 days
- Succession planting management, again based on properties of the crop, possibly also taking into consideration bed location, amount of sun, time of year, etc.
- Ohhhhh man...
In other news:
- I ripped all the crops out of the NS1 bed
- Removed the sod around the perimeter of NS1
- Cultivated and re-leveled bringing the final width to a solid 36"
- Did the same for NS2
- Trimmed bottom branches from zucchini to prevent diseases from taking hold
- Realized that if I want to sell the baby zucchini w/ blossoms I will need to plant 20+ more plants - don't think I have the room for this
- Pulled out remaining cardinal spinach
- Mounded up soil around the bunching onions to blanch the lower 1-2"
- Some beans are starting to appear on the EW3 bed
- Tuned the drip lines on the blueberries
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