For a while now, I have wanted to go through my seeds and record what I have in some sort of sensible order. I have now managed to get that job done, after at least three hours of work putting the Latin and common names, seed sowing times, weeks to harvest, whether its flowers or food, and how many seed packets I have of that particular type of seed. In total, I have 181 packets of seeds!

Now that my spreadsheet has been completed, I know what I have and can use up all my tomato seeds, for example, before I go and buy any more. I can now also make a plan of what I am growing and when over the next year.

Being as busy as I am, I need to have a sensible plan to be able to do some gardening at home around my work and studies. This si important to me in such a big way, as I rarely do any actual ‘proper gardening’ (or horticulture-whatever you want to call it, I don’t do enough).

The lack of doing the job I have been trained to do when I am actually working is something that is really bothering me at the moment, which is why my home gardening is so important. I want to keep those skills that I was taught and learn new things, whether its new plants, how to encourage a seed considered ‘hard to germinate’ to germinate, methods of propagation I haven’t used before or how to use my home-grown veg in the kitchen-it is fun and I love learning about anything to do with plants.

So, when I finally get my plan together I will have to limit my enthusiasm so that I can look after all the plants I grow properly! I want to have flowers and food all year round. Luckily, with the climate I have in Sydney, I am able to do that. I’ll have things like capsicums, chillies and tomatoes in the summer and beans, peas and onions in winter (but other things too). I will try and get this plan worked out over the next week or so, but it may be a couple of weeks depending on how much time I have.

As tomorrow is a public holiday. I will be potting up and sweeping up as required. The rest of the day will be studying.