During January most of my time is spent on the computer, making the 2015 farm plan. It starts with reviewing last year’s sales and field notes to see what did well, what had poor production, and new ideas. Based on this evaluation I do a seed calculation, that requires knowing how much I’d like to harvest of each crop and the available field space I have. The seed calculation tells me exactly how many seeds of each individual crop I will need for the season.
Next I do inventory on my existing seed stock. I always try to use seed I currently have, unless it was a variety that I didn’t like or performed really poorly. From this I can see what additional seed I need to purchase. So then I can put together my seed order which always includes my old favorites and some new varieties that sound hopeful.
The next piece of the puzzle is the planting schedule which has each seed variety planting task organized by date. This is the longest spreadsheet in the entire farm plan, I hope to complete this next week … hopefully.