Planning for a fall harvest can be a pain, since you have to count backwards from the anticipated harvest date to know when to plant. For years, I used a calendar and counted the days. But I found an easier way on my computer.

I set up three columns in Excel that do it for me. I just put in a planting date and the listed days to maturity, and the harvest date is automatically calculated. I find it pretty useful for late summer plantings for fall harvest. I also use it in the spring when planning second crops. I keep this little helper on my garden plot page, which I set out in Excel. Just thought I'd pass it along if anyone is interested.

Instructions are below, but if you aren't sure about setting it up yourself, email me, and I'll send it to you as an attachment, pretty small on an Excel page because it's only three items.

Here's what it looks like when set up:

Planting Date

1-Feb

Days to Maturity

75

Harvest Date

16-Apr

It's a harvest calculation for my Alderman peas, though the first two items can be changed for anything.

To set it up yourself, here's how:

Column A, Line 1

Type in Planting Date

Column A, Line 2

Click on: Format/Cells/Number/Date. Choose a date format you like.

Type a planting date in cell A2. Change as needed.

Column A, Line 4

Type in Days to Maturity

Column A, Line 5

Click on: Format/Cells/Number/General

Type the days to maturity in cell A5. Change as needed.

Column A, Line 7

Type in Harvest Date

Column A, Line 8

Click on: Format/Cells/Number/Date

Then type the following formula in cell A8: =A2+A5

This formula will automatically give you the anticipated harvest date by adding the days to maturity to your planting date. And of course the DTM listed for anything is only a general number -- your harvest could actually be sooner or later than the number of days given.