Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Handy calculator to help you determine seed-starting dates

We've added a couple of new tools to help growers plan when to start seeds inside and when it's safe to set seedlings outside for transplanting.


To check out these tools, visit the Johnny's Selected Seeds home page. At the top right, you'll find links to download a seed-starting date calculator, and a soil temperature chart. You'll need a copy of Excel, or similar spreadsheet software to open and use the calculator. You can also import the calculator into Google Documents.

The information was provided to us by Lynn Byczynski, editor and publisher of the "Growing for Market" newsletter and author
of several books, which are available in Johnny's online bookstore:
The Flower Farmer: An Organic Grower's Guide to Raising and Selling Cut Flowers; The Hoophouse Handbook; Market Farming Success.

We've also added a soil temperature/germination chart.

3 comments:

museumofdreams said...

That is a nice little calculator. Johnny's is great at providing information and tools for growers.

Perhaps you or your readers might be interested in out Fantastic Farm & Garden Calculator www.landshareco.org which is an online farm and garden planner. We originally designed it for our own small farm to help simplify planning our CSA, as well as making it easier to plan for intercropping and successions. It was designed with biointensive methods in mind, but can be used with other planting methods as well.

Best,
Jim

Unknown said...

The calculator is a great idea but I have found it inconsistent with Johnny's seed products. For example, Copra onions have directions to sow 8 weeks before last frost. The calculator says onions are 8 weeks before 'setting out' which is 4 weeks before the last frost -- so 12 weeks total. So is it 8 or 12 weeks???

Anonymous said...

best calculator I could find on the web as it allows you sort by date. only question is why don't you have an entry for beans? - Roger