Technology: Using a Worksheet for Garden Records

NOTE: If you have trouble viewing the spreadsheet, use your mouse to move the slider bar at the bottom of the chart. Thanks.

Keeping records of perennials, annuals, seeds and bulbs can be easier for gardeners if you use a computer and software. With a background in technology, I often use computer tools and software as aids for my garden planning and records. The worksheet is a list of the seeds and bulbs that I ordered recently. I included information about the color, height and sowing/planting time. I also added columns to indicate the garden where I will plant the seeds and bulbs as well as some notes about possible companions.

I embedded the hyperlink to the website catalog where the plants were ordered. This gives me more information and sometimes photos of the plants. The links work unless the company changes the url address. On my local computer, every plant had a working hyperlink. Once I uploaded the worksheet to use here, hyperlinks to Swallowtail Seeds didn't carry over for some reason. The underlined plants have working links to Diane's Seeds and John Scheepers catalog pages.

While I used spreadsheet software installed locally on my computer, Google Docs is available for free online.

As I plant the seeds and bulbs this fall and next spring, I can come back to my spreadsheet and edit the information. When the plants begin emerging, I can add columns to indicate the dates they were visible as well as the dates that the plants bloomed.