Never lose track: Create your own gardening calendar

Magazine

A lot of plants can mean a lot of different tasks to keep track of. A gardening calendar can help you get a clear view of what you want to do when over the upcoming weeks, so you can keep on top of things. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Mind the frost!

If you’re keen to get off to an early start with your planting this spring, make sure you do so after the last danger of frost has past. Look up the likely date of last frost for your region and mark the date on your gardening calendar. Be prepared for the actual last frost to occur weeks after this though, and leave it a good bit later than the official date if you want to be confident your plants won’t be affected. Another option is to keep an eye on weather reports and keep plants in containers initially, so you can bring them back into the house if necessary.

A slight exception to this rule can be made for some cool weather plants, including greens like lettuce, spinach and broccoli, which may be able to tolerate light frosts. Consult seed packets and pots for instructions on individual plants, or if there isn’t enough information there, have a look on the supplier’s website.

Planting

If you’re planning on growing plants from seed, find out what the ideal amount of time is for them to be started indoors before planting out. Enter the indoor planting date on your gardening calendar, bearing in mind it may be before the last frost date. Also add dates for transplanting these plants into the garden and sowing any seeds.

Create separate entries for each plant or crop, as many will have different requirements. However, if two or more have dates which overlap, you may be able to carry them out on the same day to save time. You may also need to take your other commitments into account, for example by fitting all of your planting dates into weekends if you work during the week.

Use your garden calendar to schedule larger jobs

Creating new structures, tidying your shed or making a raised flower bed are all things that take a bit of time. But if these tasks occur to you when you have other things to do, don’t just forget about them. Consult your diary to find windows in your schedule and enter the dates into your garden calendar. Not only does this allow you to prepare properly and get any necessary materials in, it also gives you an opportunity to enlist the help of family and friends. Giving people advance notice and turning the task into a social occasion could make all the difference in getting people interested in helping out.

Garden maintenance

Mark core maintenance jobs like watering, mowing, weeding and pest control in your gardening calendar. Although your plants will have different needs and won’t all need the same type of care on the scheduled day, your gardening calendar can remind you to check your plants’ requirements on a regular basis.

If you’re busy during the week and are concerned that you won’t have time for the more frequent maintenance tasks like watering, consider using automated irrigation technology like GARDENA’s smart Water Control. You can also look into robotic lawnmowers like GARDENA’s smart SILENO if you’d like to be able to cross mowing the lawn off your garden calendar too!

Harvesting

Harvesting is one of the highlights of gardening, so make sure you don’t miss it! There would be nothing worse than putting in work all year and then missing your harvesting window because you’re away. Your gardening calendar can help you be aware of what will become available when. This could be especially handy with particularly large crops where you may need to arrange storage, plan large harvest-based dinners or ask friends and neighbours over to help with the picking.

Keeping track

Whether on your gardening calendar, or in a separate diary, record any interesting or useful experiences, good or bad. If fruit ripens earlier than expected, new mystery flowers appear from nowhere in your garden or you suddenly have an insect infestation to deal with, write it down. This will remind you of unexpected joys and challenges when it comes to making next year’s gardening calendar. Recording the success or failure of different plants and the size and timing of different harvests will also make you make important decisions when the time comes to prepare for planting season again.

A gardening calendar can help you keep things running like clockwork, as well as serving as a helpful reminder of your experiences. And if it’s looking a bit full, remember that a bit of automated help with routine maintenance could allow you to tackle more ambitious projects … or just have a well-deserved rest!