Share your crop planning tools

I'm down the rabbit hole trying to understand crop planning with a spreadsheet that seems to get wider and wider with every bit of data I'd like to collect. Have tried general planning tools, but often plants I wish to sow are not on those lists, so having to collect my own data.

Of course this will all become easier with experience, but for now, I need an easier way to keep on track!

I currently have a notebook where I list sowing dates, when I pot up the plants and how many I get, then hopefully when and where I put them in the garden.

Would love to see what sort of tools/spreadsheets/etc. y'all use to document your garden

When I discovered that I was spending half my time documenting my garden, I stopped documenting.

If I don't keep records, I can grow twice as much food with the same effort. Or I can spend half as much time gardening, and use the time savings to dance, sing, hike, run, swim, or play.

Mr. Lofthouse is right, but I enjoy planning and sketching my garden.  For me it's part of the fun, especially before I can actually plant.  I have 6 raised beds different sizes, and some whiskey barrels and some large plastic pots. I have used graph paper to map out the basic size and shape.  I copy it so I don't have to figure it out every year.  I make a list of everything I want to plant.  I check a few charts I have printed, and made for myself for companion plants.  I decide what should go where.  When I plant I write what I actually planted, the date and details.  This is helpful if you are still getting a feel for what you like.  I planted 4 types of peas this year.  Two I didn't like, and if I didn't write it down, next year I may plant the peas I didn't like again.  But now I can avoid them and try something else.  I enjoy doing it this way.  There is a good planner at
The Old Farmer's Almanac Garden Planner <almanac@growveg.com>  It does the work for you.  I think gardening is very individual.  Grow what you like and spend as much time as you need.  My mom and dad always had a bountiful garden, and they rota-tilled every spring and planted everything is a group in rows, and that worked well for them.  I have raised beds, and while I always add compost and other organic stuff before I plant, I never till.  Nothing is in a row, and there is always a variety of veggies and eatable flowers in my garden.  I hate to say this out loud, I often have a successful garden that rarely has pests, or disease.  I guess what I'm trying to say is do what makes you happy.  Enjoy your successes and learn from your mishaps.

Years ago we bought a kit that had a base that you could design the garden using the dry erase pens.  Then there were sheets that told all about each plant and another that explained about companion plants.

I still have it as I do refer to the plant info.

Most of the garden planners I found online are something that the service wants you to buy, like an app.  Here is one from Mother Earth News:

https://gardenplanner.motherearthnews.com/

Here is some information on some free ones:

https://www.thespruce.com/free-garden-planners

With 11 Free Garden Planners there is probably one that just about anyone will like.  They all appear to be very similar to the one we bought years ago.

I too have a spreadsheet that borders on the overwhelming, so much so I no longer touch it.  As an alternative, during the long gray winter days this year, I spent some time researching my favorite vegetables to grow.  I broke them down into what I deemed the most important categories - frost hardy, not frost hardy, cold season and warm season, short season harvest and regular/long harvest (based on the number of days from planting to harvest).  I hesitate to say those categories are the 'most' important, but in my experience, a killing frost on early tomatoes has been more crucial than the pH of my soil.  I find that only 3 or 4 categories of information keeps it less overwhelming.

I do some season extension with an unheated plastic hoop house, so it was important for me to know which hardy greens I could grow for year long salad (we are zone 5, so it is possible to keep semi-frost hardy plants going under plastic).  I've attached a PDF copy of my most helpful sheet thus far.  Feel free to use and abuse as fits your needs.  

I keep an excel spreadsheet with a cell for each bed in my garden.  Each year I copy the cells over to the right and change the year at the top.  I the move them up 4 spots to do my "crop rotation".  I also decide during the winter if I grew too much or too little of anything and fiddle with the plan a bit.  This could easily be done on paper instead.

When I first set it up I spent a lot of time making sure the nitrogen fixers were spaced out and that the hungrier crops followed them in the rotation.  I also wanted to make sure a particular crop didn't land in the same spot two years in a row.

To determine when to start seeds, I just have a running list of all the plants I start and what date to do it on.  If I'm planting the starts out into the garden and realize they're too big or little, I adjust the date for the next year.