Posts Tagged ‘crop review’

The Yearly Planning Process

My favorite part of winter farm work is the part that happens indoors… planning for the year to come.  For me, this involves the following steps:

1. A crop by crop review to determine what changes should be made in the year to come.

2. Updating the harvest plan - when and how often to I want to harvest X crop for X market?

3. Updating the planting plan - to achieve the above harvest, when do I need to plant each crop, and how much should I plant each time?

4. Taking a seed inventory - How much did I really use of each variety?

5. Making the seed order - Choose varieties based on the crop-by-crop review and what the catalogs are offering.  Comparing this year’s planting plan with last year’s (& with the inventory) to see if seed amounts need to change.  Seek out organic varieties; compare prices.

6. Update the crop rotation map - how many beds/rows of each plant family will I be growing in Spring? Summer? Fall/Winter? Overwinter?  How does this fit into the multi-year plan.

I’ve now completed all of these steps for the 2010 season, and in the next couple posts I’ll share some of what I’ve come up with.