KEEPING THE RECORD STRAIGHT.
With the arrival of seed from the AGS and the start of a new Millennium I thought it would be a good to check up on the record keeping. If you grow a lot of plants from seed as I do especially alpines, record keeping is an essential part of the process. A process of elimination quickly identifies seed pots that have lost their labels, when you have both name and number.
Even when planted out in the garden and the label gets broken; the tip of the label is all you need to identify the plant. If you show plants in the section "raised from seed" it is quite easy to check the book for the correct information if the label is faded and has not been replaced, something we are all guilty of from time to time.
The system that I use is simple but quite effective. A Collins Analysis book has just the right amount of columns for the purpose.
The two small columns at the start of the page are just the right size for to record the catalogue no and collection no if applicable. The next column is a large one and usually accommodates the name. The next one records the number of seed. That leaves five columns, into which I record, compost type, date seeds sown, source of seed, date germinated and number germinated, in that order. The year is put at the top of the page. I use one page for each source if there is a large amount of seed, (each page holds forty records) but split it if they are small amounts.
So armed with just one book I can go into the garden or greenhouse with records to hand of every seed variety that was sown for the last ten years.
The other advantages of keeping records is that I now know when ordering seed that there are names that should not appear on the order form. The continuous blank spaces after a certain name means that they do not germinate under my conditions, or are DOA (dead on arrival) or I do not have a clue how to germinate them. Whatever the reason I know when to give up.
It is also interesting from a research point of view, as one can build up a lot of knowledge as to when is the best time to sow certain types of seed.
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