Matchbook Labs / free garden planting log printable

Free Garden Planting Log — Printable Planting Journal Template

One sheet for the planting rush: a bed-by-bed log of what went in the ground and when, a notes box for your own frost dates, a tally for what came out, and a running seed inventory. Print it at planting time and keep it on a clipboard by the door.

How to use it: print one sheet per season, or one per bed if your beds are busy. Fill the table the day you plant, not from memory on the weekend. The gray first row shows the idea: bed 2, tomatoes, mid-May. Everything after it is write-in, on purpose. Works on A4 and US Letter; grayscale prints fine.

The planting log

Eight rows, one per bed or per planting. Write the bed name however you say it out loud; the log works the same for "bed 2" and "the bed by the fence." The days-to-harvest column takes the number straight off the seed packet, so the sheet holds both what you planted and what the packet promised about it.

Bed	Plant	Date planted	Days to harvest
2	tomatoes	mid-May	from the packet

The gray row is a fill-in demo, not advice on what to plant or when. If you succession-sow, use a new row each time the same bed gets a new crop; the date column keeps the order honest. When a planting fails, log it anyway. Next year's plan gets written from the failed rows more than the good ones.

Season notes

Frost dates are local. Take your first and last frost dates from local sources: an extension office near you, an almanac for your region, or a gardening neighbor who has kept notes longer than you. Write them in pencil and adjust as your own records pile up. The two spare lines take whatever else the season teaches you, like when the ground finally dried out or which bed stayed soggy. If you want the weekly side of this, the free homestead planner printable covers chores and the week around it.

First frost date
Last frost date
Season note
Season note

Write in YOUR local dates from local sources. A frost date printed on a generic page would be somebody else's weather, so this sheet ships empty on purpose.

Harvest tally

Six lines for the first picks of each crop. The planting table says what went in; the tally says what came out. Amount can be a count, a weight, or a phrase like "two colanders full," whichever unit you will actually repeat.

Date	What	Amount

Six rows is a first-picks list, not a full season. Print a second sheet when the crops come in heavy and keep them stapled together, oldest on top.

Four record-keeping tips

Log the same day. A row written at the end of planting day is a fact. The same row written three days later is a guess with confidence.
Take days-to-harvest from the packet. Write the number printed on the packet, even if a neighbor swears theirs runs faster. The log is a record of what the packet promised against what your beds did, and that comparison is the useful part.
Frost dates in pencil, always. Your own notes, kept over a couple of seasons, describe your yard better than any printed table can. Redraw the dates when your records disagree with them.
Keep the finished sheets. Last year's log is next year's plan already written: which bed held tomatoes, how long the beans actually took, which packet had too many seeds. A drawer of used sheets beats a fresh memory every spring.

Seed inventory

Six lines so the seed box stops surprising you. Write the variety and when you bought it, then update the quantity left as packets get used up. Next season's order gets written against this table instead of memory, which is how duplicate zucchini packets happen.

Variety	Bought	Qty left

Bought can be a year or a full date; whatever you'll remember checking. Qty left can be "half packet" if counting seeds feels silly. The table only needs to be readable by the person holding the wallet at the seed order.

Print tips

One sheet per season covers most gardens. Print two if you run a lot of beds, one per half of the garden.
Print at 100% scale on A4 or US Letter. Grayscale is fine; the layout is lines and boxes, no ink-heavy fills.
Hole-punch straight into the garden binder. The tables are full-width with standard borders, so they punch cleanly on both paper sizes.
Prefer typing? Copy the tables into a spreadsheet; the columns transfer as-is.

Questions people ask

Is this garden planting log really free?: Yes. Print it, copy the layout onto your own paper, or rebuild it in a spreadsheet. Nothing to install, no account, no email.
Can I use it as a free planting journal template in a binder?: That's the intended use. The tables are full-width with standard borders, so they hole-punch cleanly on both A4 and US Letter. Start a new sheet each season and the binder becomes the garden's record.
The frost date box is blank. What goes in it?: Your own dates, from local sources: an extension office near you, an almanac for your region, or a neighbor's records. The sheet doesn't ship with dates because a frost date on a generic page would be somebody else's weather.
What goes in the days-to-harvest column?: The number printed on the seed packet, written in on planting day. It's a starting number to compare against what you actually pick.
What does the full journal add?: The printed pack goes to 40 pages: a season task wheel, a 12-bed garden planner, canning, freezer and dry-store logs, monthly budget boxes, egg and produce trackers, recipe cards and a 2027 calendar.

Want the full pack?

This log is the planting core of the Homestead Harvest Journal 2026: a 40-page printable planner with a season-by-season task wheel, a 12-bed garden planner, preservation logs for canning, freezer and dry store, monthly budget boxes, egg and produce trackers, recipe cards and a weekday-correct 2027 calendar. A4 and US Letter.

Get the 40-page Homestead Harvest Journal →

Printable PDF, A4 + US Letter. Personal use.