“What I am about to give you is the key to having amazing food production, huge yields, and a well run homestead. If you use this one thing regularly, you will be stunned by your progress and achievements” announced Butch.
Years ago I attended a 3-day workshop for Homesteaders taught by Butch Tindle of the Center For Essential Education.
A small group of us had just settled into the small classroom for the first morning. Boy was I excited! What was Butch going to share with us that could possibly be so important?
What was this amazing secret Butch was going to share with us?
Was it some kind of soil amendment? A type of seed variety? Maybe a cool tool?
Butch reached into a box and started handing out …..
clip boards.
What?
Yup, good record keeping and making notes of what worked and what didn’t was the key to accelerated learning, better production, and bigger yields.
Butch is totally correct about record keeping. And I do make a pretty good attempt at it. I keep a log book and tape in empty seed packets, or clip out descriptions from seed or livestock catalogs to try and help me remember what I grew and why. I’ve been reviewing different garden planning software or journals for many years. I’ve toyed with a form of my own creation too.
I do run a research center after all.
But OK, so I really haven’t found exactly what I am needing, and I still need improvement.
It just seems there is so much to keep track of, and so little time! What is really important? How should I organize it?
Several lightbulbs went off recently as I was watching Cindy Conners video on garden planning.
First off, Cindy is an amazing person. She has more than 35 years of experience growing her own food, market gardening, teaching classes, authoring books, creating videos, and passionately learning everything she can about sustainably. Cindy is now a real master at this stuff (if anyone can be).
How Cindy organizes information to keep track of her garden(s) just makes so much sense.
I really loved this video and highly recommend it.
I will warn complete beginners that you will probably get overwhelmed by all the information. If you are just starting out and on a budget, then you might put this on your wish list and pick up a copy in a few more seasons. Or maybe pool some funds with other gardening friends and share it.
If you are serious about growing food, even if you are just starting, by watching Cindy’s videos you are getting to spend time with someone incredibly knowledgeable. Cindy’s videos are well organized and the videography is good (it’s done by her son – Cindy must be proud!).
The videos Cindy creates are the kind you will be watching several times – they are that dense with quality information.
As I watched, I kept nodding my head at little comments “Oh that is so true!”, or “gezz, I wish I had thought of that”. 
If you plan on becoming a market grower, you will definately want to get started with a detailed system like what Cindy demonstrates. In Fact, I doubt you could successfully run a market operation without this kind of record keeping.
Growing food for a family is essentially a mini-market garden and will get quite sizable, so you too are going to need some kind of record keeping.
I think it is well worth picking up a copy just to get to experience a master at truly sustainably growing food. Here is the link to Cindy’s website (I recommend you get the bundle of both her videos and the book) http://www.homeplaceearth.com/3.html
Tal
Marjory Wildcraft is an Expedition Leader and Bioneer Blogger with The [Grow] Network, which is an online community that recognizes the wisdom of “homegrown food on every table.” Marjory has been featured as an expert on sustainable living by National Geographic, she is a speaker at Mother Earth News fairs, and is a returning guest on Coast to Coast AM. She is an author of several books, but is best known for her “Grow Your Own Groceries” video series, which is used by more than 300,000 homesteaders, survivalists, universities, and missionary organizations around the world.
