Mind your peas (and q's) on a chart

Did you have enough peas last year . . . or were there too many beans? Just how many should you plant this year? Now is a good time to prepare a chart for this year's vegetable garden. Then you will know the answers to such questions when it's time to prepare for next year's garden.

A chart is the easiest memory-jogger during such a busy season -- and also the easiest to read later.

A 12-by-18-inch piece of manila tagboard is the basis for four years of garden recordIt becomes easy to compare and to make adjustments for seasonal differences from year to year.

Fold the tagboard in half giving a 9-by-12-inch space for one year's record. This I mark with horizontal lines at half-inch or less spacing, thus having space for 17 vegetables. If you raise more, the spaces can be narrowed.

The first vertical line marks a half-inch space for numbers. The next line marks a 2-inch space for the name of the vegetable and sometimes the variety. You can label the column "Vegetables 1980," on the first horizontal line. Four 1-inch-wide columns follow and can be marked at the top "When Planted," "How Much," "First Picking," and "Last Picking."

The next column, 3 1/2 inches wide, can include miscellaneous information, such as weather conditions that affected the growing season, last frost, first frost, and evaluation of the harvest, such as very good, good, poor, or even failure.

This leaves a 2-inch space for itemized costs.