[Market-farming] planting calendar wish
Beth Spaugh
lists at rhomestead.com
Tue Dec 8 18:27:54 EST 2009
Take a look at Dan Kaplan's. I use it as the base for my crop planning -
everyone will do things a little differently. I bought his as much for his
data on his planting dates, amounts, etc - to have a better starting point
or a comparison with my projections when I started the CSA.
Before I used Kaplan's, I did primarily the calendar in Excel. I put weeks
of the year across the top, then date of the week (5/3, etc), crop, variety,
seed or transplant, etc. I color filled in the columns for avg last frost
and first frost, beginning and end of markets, high sales days, etc. Then
coded the week to start seeds (g), transplants (t), seed (s), and weeks of
expected harvest (x). That allowed me to visually see what should happen
with successions. Of course, the actual harvest dates didn't coincide with
planned, as a beginner it gave me a starting place. As Allison mentioned,
sort by the g, t, s, x, copy what you want that week and paste it into
another worksheet (because the way I did it you will get all the g in date
order, then all the s in date order, etc. The reason for making harvest x is
so that it comes at the end of sorting. I also used some patterned fills,
but that is a pain when copying and pasting the planting to harvest
intervals for successions - the patterned cells don't move. Same thing
happens with the colored columns for frost and markets.
I can email you my old version. Since Dan charges $25 for his, I won't
email you my version of his.
Beth Spaugh
Rehoboth Homestead, Peru, NY
Farm Fresh Food Club CSA - http://rhomestead.com <http://rhomestead.com/>
Garden fresh vegetables, organically grown, and pastured chicken, duck, and
geese
"How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." -
Wendell Berry
"Without power over our food, any notion of democracy is empty." - Frances
Moore Lappe
_____
From: market-farming-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:market-farming-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Wiediger,
Alison
Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 3:00 PM
To: Market Farming
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] planting calendar wish
We have done exactly that with a spreadsheet. Actually, the first workbook
of the spreadsheet functions as our seed order - crop, variety, seedsman,
pkg size, days-to-maturity, price, etc. Once entered, it can be updated for
the next year, and can be sorted by seedsman for doing online ordering.
Then, the second workbook copies over crop, variety, DTM, and adds, seed or
transplant, date to seed, date actually seeded, date to transplant, date
actually transplanted, number of plants or row feet needed, size of cell for
transplant, figures expected first harvest, entry for actual first harvest,
figures actual DTM and variance from entered DTM. And some other stuff I
can't remember off the top of my head. For a given crop, say squash, insert
lines for how many plantings you will make and copy the static info into
them, then add your planting dates for each one.
Really cool data! Over time, it will really help us to fine tune planting
dates for OUR PARTICULAR FARM - which of course differs from catalog dates.
Also, it helps us with actually harvest days in fall - which is very
different from summer - even for the same variety. I have to admit we don't
do as good a job of entering the data during the middle of the busiest
season, but it still helps a lot. It is also a fabulous help when we are
seeding all those transplants in the spring - just sort by seeding date,
print it off, and you have your work list for that day. Ditto transplanting
- although weather often throws a wrench into those!
Give it a try! If I can develop one, you can too - I am NOT a power
spreadsheet user. We will be using the template for the 3rd season this year
and the data becomes more valuable with each season.
Alison Wiediger, Au Naturel Farm
_____
From: market-farming-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:market-farming-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Roots Farm &
Karen Sutherland
Sent: Tuesday, December 08, 2009 1:03 PM
To: Market Farming Community Farming
Subject: [Market-farming] planting calendar wish
Greetings to all,
I'd like to have a calendar (software) that would allow me to enter varietal
names and a small amount of additional info. (like whether hybrid, organic,
etc.) with planting dates and expected days to maturity. My vision is then
that the calendar would automatically generate expected harvest dates
(perhaps with choice of graphic display) and so be a good tool for: 1.
estimating market readiness, 2. projecting holes in cash flow and therefore
when we need to plant various additional crops to fill in gaps and 3.
figuring how far off our maturity times are from stated times to allow
better planning in future.
Does anybody have or know of anything like this? If so, is it actually
worth the data entry time? (I am aware of the adage "Be careful what you
wish for...")
Thanks!
Best wishes,
Karen
Roots Farm
Organic Produce
Fruits, Roots, Vegetables & Herbs
Cockrane, DOMINICA
767-449-3038
rootsfarm at cwdom.dm
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