BLOG: Organizing Your Harvest

Do you plant all your seeds at once only to be overwhelmed by the harvest?  STOP! With a little planning you can organize your harvest so you won’t overplant or underplant.

I've found two different ways to do this. Both ways involve printing out my own calendar on paper that I can write on with pencil—slick calendar pages don't work for me. The pictures are just examples—I haven't finished my "real" calendar.

The first way is to plant something as soon as I CAN. OK, so in our zone I can start planting Broccoli and Cabbage tomorrow. My shorthand notes are: Broccoli (2)—Stonehead 7+4 (3/15) means that my GOAL is to have 2 heads of Stonehead Broccoli. It will take approximately 7 weeks + 4 days (55 days) which means I "should" be able to harvest around March 15. We all know that the days to harvest fluctuate WILDLY.

The -12 next to the date indicates that this is 12 weeks before the last frost date for my area and the "IN" means I can start the seeds INDOORS. I usually write this list SOMEWHERE during the week, but not necessarily on that particular date. Usually I start writing on the Sunday “square” of the calendar, but when things get going fast & furious, it trails all the way across that week.

I know I'll want 2 more heads of cabbage ready about four weeks afterward, so I'll also put the same notes during the week of February 19th (with other seeds that can be started that week).

The second way is to figure out WHEN I want something and work backward. For instance, let's look at a simplified version of what I might want to have ready for a 4th of July celebration.

Let's say I anticipate 10 people coming for a party and I want to serve corn, a tomato & cucumber salad and grilled stuffed zucchini.

(12) Silver Queen Corn 12+1 4/8 means I would want 12 ears of corn (10 + a couple extra). I think Silver Queen has 2 ears per stalk, if not play along with me, so I'd grow about 6 plants.

You'll note that April 8th is REALLY iffy for us weather-wise (our last frost date is the 15th). And although it's best to direct sow corn, I HAVE successfully seeded it in the greenhouse and transplanted it. To me the trick is actually keeping it "almost" root bound so that it has a good root ball when I plant it. AND I would probably plant some even earlier in the greenhouse or sunny window in the house and even some a week after.

It sounds more complicated than it really is.

What does everyone else do to make sure you have enough, or more importantly, not too much? Or do you just throw caution to the wind and wing it?