I log my plants in Excel. Allows me to quickly calculate days to harvest, and I can sort by whatever column I happen to be interested in at the moment.

I started out on paper but found I kept rewriting it all the time.

Here is a link that might be useful: loribees garden blog

I use both Word and Excel--the first to document which plants did well or suffered due to lack of rain/too much rain, etc. and also to log weather events like the extreme cold (minus 19 degrees) and 8 ft. of snow that fell this winter. I also note when things send up new growth in spring, when they begin/stop blooming since that allows me to plan for continuous blooms over the course of the growing season. I use Excel mostly to track the number of winter sown containers as well as seed trades. I don't do many vegetables yet but imagine it would be helpful to track days to harvest.

Here is my log. I'm more interested in total harvest and growing degree days, as reflected in my table. It's from WebPlus, a Serif web program that has an Excel-like table function.

Mike

I made myself a binder. Each variety has it's own page, (and because I was bored this winter) a cutout picture glued in, and a brief description of special notes. (i.e. needs dark to germinate, likes dryish mix, damps off easy, hates transplanting, keep humid and cool, ect.) Plus I do this simple little note on each sheet: germ @ 70-75 for 7-21 days. Grow on 60-65. I refer back to it, if I lose track of what I'm doing, but because it's a pain in the neck to cart a binder around with me all day, I jot down seed notes on 3 x 5 index cards, that I can transfer to my book later. (Such as start date: 17 Mar (12 seeds) first sprouts-31 March, Most sprouts-4 April (9 seeds) 6 sprouts died-9 April. Too wet.) Once they get transplanted outside, I've already memorized who goes where and how many of them survived in which spots. But I'll pick a day here and there that's usually a break-day when the sun is shining, nice summer breezes, not too hot and I feel like just lazing around to add more notes to my book, (i.e. suffers in the heat, does better in the shade of the river birch, slugs love it, ants harvested aphids on it, caught some sort of disease, Wow! looks great with torenia, ect, ect.

I don't know if this is too much trouble for people who are more meticulous with computerized record keeping, but it works well for me because my memory is fuzzy so it helps me, and I enjoy reliving the gardening process with my gardening "scrap" book.

I don't have any time to do any of that. I don't even know what is coming up. I did not know the difference between Egg Plant anf Pepper until the fifth leave. Cucumber and Tomatoes are easy to recognize. If I have time for Bookkeeping I would rather spend it on pulling weeds.

I use the plant stakes to record when planted and any potting up or movement during the growth. Al

I like the fact that you can be as OCD (or not) as is personally gratifying. Last year was the first time I began recording anything. I did it more as a journal/diary than anything else. This year I am growing everything from seed, and am trying to keep an additional more organized chart of sowing date/germination time/ early growth habit/container size. But I am afraid that I am not always good about recording the info and I haven't tried to use excell, its just a word doc with a table.

Every spring as perennials begin to emerge, I am walking around the garden, going hmmmmmmmm....I wonder what that is? I dont always remember from year to year what I have planted where. I really should draw myself a map.

The first year I grew perennials from seed, I lost all of my tags, got everything mixed up and ended up tucking in plants randomly. The following year when the plants grew to normal size and bloomed was full of surprises, some good some alarming.