Are you ready to move on to the next step?
Now that all your seeds are organized and you have a idea of some starting dates. It is time to get all of these dates in one place. That is where the Seedling Timeline will help. It is a spreadsheet designed to do all of that counting of days for you. When you are done filling it out, you will have all your seedling dates organized, you will have a weekly to-do list scheduled for this Spring and you will enter your growing season with confidence and be ready to take on the world. Let’s get started!
Step 1: Retrieve All Your Dates
A. You need to download the Spring Planting Calculator from Urban Farmer, if you haven’t already.
B. Find your Last Frost Date for your area.
a) I like looking in my Farmers Almanac but you can also find it on their website https://www.farmersalmanac.com/average-frost-dates
C. Once you have this date, plug it in. Now you will have all the dates for all your different veggies. You will have your starting dates and transplanting dates.
Step 2: Gather All Your Data
A. Open your Seed Variety Tracker. Here you are going to find all your information about what varieties you will be starting indoors this year.
B. Open your How Much to Plant Calculator. Here you are going to find how many of each veggie you are going to need.
C. Gather your calculations from the Seeds and More Guide. You will need the calculations for how many of each veggies or variety veggies you are going to use.
Step 3: Fill in your Seedling Timeline from Red Ridge Farm
(Video found in my Online Course)
How to Use the Seedling Timeline
A. Download Seedling Timeline in my free Mini Garden Planning Course.
B. Look at your Spring Planting Calculator and find your earliest date. For Example mine was 2/7/2020 for onions.
C. Now you have what veggie is going to start your timeline.
D. Under the “# Of Starts” Column, type the number of starts you will be planting of your first variety.
E. Under the “Seed Description” type in the name of your veggie.
F. Under the “Start Date”type in the start date the Spring Planting Calculator gave you for starting this veggie.
G. Under the “Germination Duration” type in your seeds germination period in weeks. You can find it in your seed tracker or on the back of your seed packet.
H. Skip the next column, “Germination Date”, because this column uses a formula to give your Germination Date.
I. Under “Grow Duration” type in how many weeks your seed tracker or seed packet tells you, what is required to start this veggie indoors before transplanting outdoors. For example my onions say 6-8 weeks. I chose 8 weeks to give them all the growing time I could in my short growing season.
J. Look at the “Transplant Date” and check if that date is in accordance with what your seed tracker or seed packets says. My Seed Tracker says my onion seed can be placed outside before my last frost date so this number works our perfectly.
K. Now you will notice the columns to the right have automatically changed. The dates now match your dates and the little boxes have turned green to show you a visual of the time span of this growing period for this veggie. The Start and End date at the top will have also changed. These are all set to change to match your dates. The Start Date will be the earliest date under the “Start Date” column and the End Date will be the last date under the “Transplant Date” Column.
L. Now all you need to do is continue adding all your veggie varieties. This spreadsheet will give you an accurate timeline and an exact weekly schedule of when Everything will need to be started indoors and when you will need to transplant your veggies outdoor.
Tip: Are you Behind?
Remember these dates are your best estimated dates for your area. If you are filling in this sheet and realize that your dates have past. Don’t panic, Just start were you are at. For example if I don’t get my onions started on the exact date I can change the date to when I actually started them and all the dates in the spreadsheet will change. I may have to change the length of my growing period to 6 weeks if I was 2 weeks late in starting them. That is why you are given that buffer area on your seed packet. Life happens!!
Step 4: Fill in your Calendar with these Dates
It is now your choice, you can use your own preferred calendar or I have developed a printable color-coded calendar for you. It can be found, along with the instructional video, in the Free Mini Garden Planning Course. You can also find it and a list of all the extra goodies I made for my Online Course here. Tell next time.
Pray, Just Plant!
Seeds to Seedling Series
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