Matching actual planting bed feet to mapped bed feet

For experienced users, consider the following as a potential approach to minimizing the back and forth when moving between plantings and the reality in the field when mapping those plantings.

One of the fastest ways to crop plan is to:

  1. Create 'rough' plantings using Succession Builder or Sales projections and then use Generate from projections. Then map those plantings to your fields to fill your beds. 
  2. Then download and open your detailed planting schedule from the Crops page. Your planting schedule has a 'Mapped' column showing what you plan to grow based on and update your plantings crop by crop in VeggieCropper with the 'Bed ft mapped' column. 
    3. Crop plan CSV download in Excel


    Figure 1. Crop plan CSV in excel with Bed ft Mapped column

  3. From this example above, I need to go to my Arugula crop and find these two plantings and update the bed feet fields for each to the 'Bed ft mapped' amounts.

Now you are able to map the fields with the correct crop timing and minimum bed feet needed to make your sales targets and then update the planting bed feet, so you have an accurate seed order with schedules for greenhouse seeding and field planting.

You can double-check your work in fields by clicking on a planting drop-down and scrolling to ensure all plantings say "(To map: 0.0 / X ft)".  Alternatively, you can download your planting schedule again and check that the Bed ft and Bed ft Mapped columns are equal (or close enough).  

Figure 2. Screenshot of planting drop-down on an individual field page in VeggieCropper. 'To Map: 0.0' means all of that planting has been assigned to a bed(s). A positive number means some feet have not been assigned yet. A negative number here means that this planting has been assigned to more bed feet than there are in that planting.

Whether you rough in your plantings or take more time to make sure they match your bed lengths the above example is a great way to cut down on the back and forth of updating your planting bed lengths so that your seed order and greenhouse seeding calculations will match your fields, and your supplies list too.

Pre-thinking the season can pay good money by creating more and more layers of organization (just by thinking) across the entire farm that will pay back all season long.