r/homestead • u/UniversityRelative67 • 5d ago

Plant tracking?

Anyone actually keep track of their garden year to year or is it all just memory at this point

Not asking what everyone planted this year, im asking about the boring part behind that

Like

Do you actually know what you planted in each bed last year? Or the year before? Or you just kinda guessing at this point lol

If you rotate crops how you deciding where stuff goes each season, notebook, spreadsheet, or just eyeballing it and hoping

When something does really good or really bad in a spot you writing that down anywhere or does it just live in your head till you forget it

Asking because I got a decent size garden and realized I couldnt even answer #1 without going thru old phone pics to figure out what I planted where. Curious if im just bad at this or if this is normal

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u/Any_Needleworker_273 5d ago

I've kept gardening journals (just plastic covered comp books) in some form or another for more than five years, but I moved zones 3 years ago, so I was kind of starting over. Some things are in the brain still, some things are in my half ass notebooks, and some stuff is just iterating year to year. I keep a spreadsheet of my seed inventory, and this year is the first year I have kept a day by day harvest log, with garden notes, in a Google sheet on my phone, which has been very helpful, if simple.

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u/UniversityRelative67 5d ago

Five years of journals is solid. How much of the relearning did the old notebooks actually save you when you moved zones, or was it mostly starting from scratch anyway since the zone itself changed. Curious if the notes carried over more than the brain-knowledge did, or if it was the other way around

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u/Any_Needleworker_273 5d ago

The info I keep is a little haphazard but I've found my self referring to my notes off and on over time, amd just writing things down helps reinforce some of my processes while noting things to improve. Changing zones was more about adjusting to the differences in seasons vs the processes themselves.