Keeping track of longer-term sowinging projects

Hi Everyone

I was wondering if any of you might like to comment on how you organize you're longer term projects.
My memory plays tricks on me if I go longer than a couple of months,
I often think if I could get my "labeling" act together it would be a lot easier.
Thanks for any suggestions.

I may be able to give you some examples of how I organize things as I tend to have a lot going on at the same time gardenwise. But I'm not sure about the specifics of what you mean by 'longer term projects'. I record most everything I do in computer "tablets" within a spreadsheet. If you could elaborate a little on the projects and what it is you need to keep track of maybe I can offer some suggestions.

I use the calender that comes with my IP and email and mark on that. I can have it remind me with an email on what to do or whose birthday is coming up. Very handy.

Good ideas! :)

I sow a lot of seeds as well in spring, summer, autumn and winter. About 400 species each year.
I make a dbase of all the seeds I sow, print it out and check which ones germinated.
Everything I sow gets a label, printed labels on the containers, plastic labels in the garden.

Thanks very much for the comments.
I am particularly interested in what you do, when you are germinating some difficult seed that needs prolonged periods of irregular temperatures in order to break dormancy. Lets say your willing to attempt some exotic species that can take a couple of years to germinate.
By then I will have forgotten, or misplaced, or worst of all, neglected the project (out of sight/out of mind) all of which ends in failure. I store plantings in my garden all the time and so often the name tags bleach out so they are unreadable and I have no way of knowing what I was attempting to do.

Thanks for your help
JRoss

JRoss,

Two things I do in addition to keeping a database on the computer are:

1. Keep a wall calendar and put all dates, checkpoints and actions needed on the calendar at the start of the product. For example, if seeds need six months of cold treatment, I'll write on the container with the in and out dates, enter that on the computer and also put all relevant dates on my appointment calendar.

2. When I have mass plantings in the garden that need ID, I will plant all of them in grids and refer to plants with their grid numbers in my data base along with their genus, species, selection # or what ever data you need. Plants in the garden can be referenced by their row number and position in that row. Plant # 1 in Row #1 is number 101, plant #2 is 102...... Second row first plant is 201 etc.... By keeping the grid reference in your database, you can refer back for plant ID even if you loose all plant markers in the garden.

If you need to keep track of plants within a mass planting you can use different colored plastic stakes, wire flags or other type of stake to mark plants. Just be consistent with placement of the marker in relation to plant (marker always goes on the immediate N side of plant).

If all else fails, a hand drawn map on grid paper can help you locate individual plants out of a mass planting.

Which ever method you use, keeping a written record of what you do and where things are should always allow you to figure what plants are where in the future even if all markers are destroyed or lost.

Something that I do with plants that I've put in and haven't labeled is to take a picture of the bed and put it in my computer with notes - it only helps if you can ID the bed! It's probably the laziest of all the methods mentioned, but, hey, that's me!