FoodPlants

Successional Planting Spreadsheet Tool

After reading an article in the latest Pip (Australian Permaculture magazine) a couple of weeks ago 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:

Successional Planting Spreadsheet Tool 01

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 your 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:

Successional Planting Spreadsheet Tool 02

Contact me through our website – sugarloafpermaculture.net]

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.

Here is an Excel version for all those who asked so nicely ;)

https://www.sugarloafpermaculture.net/blog/successional-planting-spreadsheet-tool

It is located at the bottom of the post.

Dylan website

If you click the file name it will open in google docs viewer, so click the download button at top right and it should download for you.. OR click the little download arrow on far right and it will download straight away. Happy planting!

About Dylan,

Dylan started learning about and studying Permaculture some time in 2009 and after 2 years or so of regular self study and practical experiments completed an online PDC course from Permaculture Visions in early 2013:

He grew up in South Africa and when 16 moved to New Zealand to finish school, complete a Science degree and become a teacher. After 2 years of teaching, international travel and teaching led to 2 years in London, 2 years in Singapore, 1 year in Australia, and 4 years in Taipei.

Dylan and Evita moved together to ‘Sugarloaf‘ in June 2013.

Dylan also has PDC Resource Set, that can be located here.

Dylan Graves

Dylan Graves got hooked on Permaculture while living abroad in Taipei in the late 2000s. He integrated it into his IT teaching and then changed lifestyles by moving to rural Australia in mid 2013 where he and partner Evita continue to develop Sugarloaf Permaculture. Our homestead where we put all aspects of Permaculture into action, including hosting work exchangers, running a Permaculture Group, and doing much volunteer work.

62 Comments

    1. Hi. This looks like an extremely interesting piece of work; thank you for your efforts. May I ask, is this keyed for a particular climate zone? Or perhaps is there a way to adjust for climate zone?

  1. This looks wonderful! I know it should be obvious but would you mind spelling out the letter abbreviations on the drop down menus? Thank you

    1. This is not obvious to me either! I’m going for H = harvest, S = seeds planted T = transplanted but I’m a little stumped on G and D….

      P.S. Thank you Dylan this is very cool and just what I was looking for! I have added an extra column for “location” as in, garden bed so I can also consider rotation on this spreadsheet.

      Cheers,
      Kai

    2. Oooh I feel silly now as I just scrolled all the way to the right in the spreadsheet and found the key!! G = sow in greenhouse, S = sow in shadehouse, D = sow direct in gardenbed, T = transplant and H = harvest.

  2. Hey Dylan,
    I would like to thank you for taking the time to share the spread sheet. I am new to permaculture and gardening in general and have set up two gardens one in England and Wales. I am just learning as I go, everything plants, flowers, trees, fungi, and to give back more to the planet than I take.

    Anyway, thank you again. You saved me a lot of time making a spreadsheet and I can invest this time else where now-like maybe fixing my leggings seedlings haha.

    Peace and Joy,
    Bobbie 🌼

  3. This is excellent. Just as I was about to start the laborious process of creating my own spreadsheet, I found this. Thank you so much for sharing. What an excellent example of people care :)

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