Spring has sprung, and despite the fact that we live in Zone 10b where we can garden year round, I've got ants in my pants and am eagerly awaiting hot weather produce! The tomatoes and peppers and zucchini and melons and cucumbers and other goodies are in the ground, and I'm watching like a hawk to catch a glimpse of seedlings as they pop up. The count so far: 2 zucchini sprouts from seeds that we planted 8 days ago.
Since we're both new to the edible gardening scene, we've been using any and every tool we've found to plot out our garden -- graph paper, clunky website garden planners, doodling with colored pencils, you name it, we've tried it. What works best for us right now is to use a garden layout in a spreadsheet that mirrors our current set up. We do square foot gardening, and try to maximize our yield so we key in on how many plants of each vegetable or fruit can grow in one square foot. That, coupled with how deep to plant everything, how tall the plants get, how much sun they require, if they're climbing or not...our heads started spinning when we had everything laid out in front of us trying to plot out the spring beds!
After 30 minutes of stacking seed packets by kind, Kristian got frustrated with the inefficiency of it all and, in true computer engineer fashion, set out to come up with a solution. He tapped away for a little while and when he showed me the fruits of his labor I promptly proclaimed, "OMG MARRY ME!"
We've been married for almost 5 years haha. But it was such a great tool, so handy, easily sortable, and completely customizable for anyone. He made it for us specifically, but after sharing some photos of his handywork there was a pretty big response from people saying they'd love to get their hands on it.
So here we are! Honestly, I didn't bother cleaning it up at all -- what you see is pretty much our exact seed database, and I wanted to keep it all so you could get a sense of how we organize things. We have all of our seeds in a three-ring binder filled with baseball trading card clear inserts, and I've since numbered all of the slots. Those numbers correspond to the numbers in the spreadsheet, so we can quickly jot down numbers on a piece of graph paper to indicate what we have planted and where.
Grab it below:
Front Yard Veggies Seed Database / Garden Planner Tool
Take it, customize it, and sort to your heart's content! We haven't plugged in the seeds per square for our square foot gardening yet (because I've been a little lazy since that's such a tedious task!), but I've already found it invaluable to use as an at-a-glance resource without having to rifle through my seed binder, look at the back of the package, or look online to find missing information like mature plant height (a major deal in a small space!).
If you have any feedback on this I'd love to hear from you! Ways to make it better, things you found helpful, or tweaks that you made to make it work for you. Happy gardening, friends!
Candice says
Thank you for this! : )
Amy Bauer says
You're very welcome!
mike says
How do I get this?
Amy Bauer says
There is a field to plug in an email address and then you're presented with a page to make a copy of the spreadsheet!
Darlene says
Thank you so much for the excel file! I was just going to create one of these for myself because I am going seed buying crazy right now and don't want to buy repeats. Thank you for the time saved in the formatting of the document!
Amy Bauer says
You're very welcome! Glad you are finding it helpful.
Darlene says
Amy, your spreadsheet, specifically the “filter” feature (I didn’t know what that was before your sheet) was worth its weight in gold! I’ve made so many amazing additional tabs to track harvest, seed planing timing, layout planning and so much more using the filter feature now. This was exactly what I needed and I didn’t even know it then! 🙂 Thank you again!
Red Dawg says
Darlene,
I, too, am very excited about this electronic log, as opposed to my years of paper drawings ! Thank you Front Yard Veggies 🙂
Can you please elaborate on your additional tabs ? I would love the data to be tied to a visual representation of our garden plot. Did you achieve this where you mention 'layout planning' ?
Damar Schlub says
Thanks for the database! I'm starting a seed library for my community and your excel is a great start! Love it!
Shayna Metzner says
Thanks so much for sharing this great resource! Since i am almost in same zone, i will benefit greatly from data inputs already as i may be planting some of the same seeds too 🙂 love the organization....
I want to make this an active sheet with some notes on how /when planted and germination dates and harvest notes....
Polly says
Hi,
For the spreadsheet, do I have a choice to not receive emails? You have a check box implying we have a choice to not receive emails but when I un-check it then I can't click the submit button to get the spreadsheet. Can I only receive it if I accept getting emails I don't want?
Amy Bauer says
If you don't want emails you can use the list in the blog post! I think the explanation is pretty clear about how to get the spreadsheet, and you always have the option to unsubscribe. This is a fairly common practice — giving something valuable for free in exhange for an email. If this bothers you, then by all means make your own spreadsheet and take hours to source the info! 🙂
Yuliisa says
I can’t seem to access the database. Any suggestions?
Amy Bauer says
You should be presented with a link to make a copy of the database once you plug your email into the field. Did it work eventually?