organising, planning and folia

Every year i spend countless hours trying to organise myself and my plot. I want a system that tells me when to sow, transplant and harvest. I’d like it personalised for my plants and it would be nice if I could link it to moon planting! My problem, I think, is that I make it harder than it needs to be. I suppose I could just use a diary but I’d like a record I could alter each year as many things will be repeated. I decided to try to make a database. I wanted one that linked to a spread sheet that updated as i added new seeds but it’s too much for me to get my head around. I’ve got AS levels in office but I seem to have forgotten it all and now my brain has gone foggy and I just don’t take it in, I’m tired and don’t have much time. I never get quiet time so it’s a battle to learn. I also have hundreds of packets of seeds to enter! And plants  (fruit, flowers etc) that I’d also like to include now that I think of it…

I thought that somewhere, someone on the web might have made something similar to what I wanted and would be willing to share so I hit google. I found hundreds of people discussing similar but not really what I wanted, or they cost too much (£100 for a template that comes with access?!) or no longer worked. In the end I found a post from a lady on a site called Folia. The lady (I won’t link to her as her inbox would probably melt!)  is kindly sharing a database that does almost what I’d like. I’m even struggling to get my head around this too – how did I forget what a query is and how to change it? Anyway, it also introduced me to folia. I made an account and I’ve spent ages in between (and at the same time as!) looking after house and family entering seeds, plants etc. It’s brilliant! Ok so it’s probably old news to the thousands of people who use it but it’s new to me!

I’d like this system or something similar on my computer as the options I’d like you have to pay for and I also like to know that I have a back up if anything goes wrong or the website closes. In the meantime I’ll carry on trying to make my own – eventually I might get somewhere and when I do, I’ll post it on here!