Successional planting spreadsheet tool

Post date: Sep 12, 2016

After reading an article in the latest Pip (Australian Permaculture magazine) last week on pages 38-42, about how to plan planting of food so that there is an on-going harvest instead of periodic gluts and then scarcity, I got inspired. Evita and I are both poor at keeping a notebook/diary of what is planted, where, and when. And we've had the feast and famine cycle happen a few times too. I decided to create a  spreadsheet of the table featured in the article:

And because it is a Google Document Spreadsheet, we can both edit it, even at the same time! And I will share the original to you as well in the spirit of People Care. Click here to open it (NB: you will need a Google Account logged in). To use the spreadsheet yourself, click on File, Make a copy... this will make a copy for you to use in your Google Docs. If you don't use Google Docs, apologies; Excel is not smart enough to open this file :( 

How to use the spreadsheet: Most cells have a dropdown list, click the little arrow in the cell to access it - this makes it quicker and prevents typos (if there are any, let me know by Commenting on the original). Also, let me know if there are vegetables to add to the main dropdown list. So, choose a vegetable you intend or have already sowed, choose variety if you know it, then follow the Key on the right hand side to show how and when it is sowed, when the Harvest is expected and so on. Here is a little example:

Tips:

To delete a cell's contents, select the cell and press the Delete key on your keyboard, then click away on another cell.

If the vegetable is not in the list, you can just type it in OR to change the whole list:

Click Data, then Validation, then add it to the list. This rule has to be copied to all other subsequent cells. Assuming this is all the cells below where you are, then click the tiny little square at the bottom right of the selected cell and drag it down the cells below. 

If you want to change the colours used, then follow the tip above except you click on Format and then Conditional formatting, make your changes and then copy across and down so all cells get the formatting rules.