Keeping useful records
Keep a planting plan across seasons
Last season’s plan is valuable because it records what you decided, not because its dates should be reused unchanged. Keep the old version intact, make a copy for the next season, and carry forward only the assumptions that still make sense.
Reviewed Oct 27, 2026
Preserve the record before editing
Open the plan you want to reuse and review its name, crop list, dates, and notes. Download a JSON backup before making substantial changes. A backup is especially useful when you have manually adjusted tasks or want to retain an earlier set of crop-data assumptions.
Then duplicate the plan and give the copy a name that makes the season clear. A fresh display name is useful, but the copy also needs its own plan identity. Two plans with similar names should not silently become the same saved record.
Change the new plan in a useful order
Start with the season and full frost dates, including years. Review the tasks whose dates depend on those inputs. Then check the crops, planting methods, space, and batch sizes. Finally, decide whether manual dates and notes still apply.
An old task marked complete describes work in the old season. Treat the copied task list as something to review, not proof that the new season’s work has been done. Retain an observation in a note when it helps explain a future decision, rather than relying on the old status alone.
Understand what local saving means
SowWindow keeps plans in the browser you use. It does not provide an account or automatically synchronize your plan to another device. Browser storage is associated with the site and can be removed by clearing site data; private-browsing storage is not a durable backup.
The saved-state message matters. If a browser cannot save, the current work may still be visible on the page while no durable copy has been written. Download the current plan as JSON before closing the page, and do not interpret a visible task list as evidence that saving succeeded.
Move an editable copy when you need it
Use JSON when moving a plan to another browser. Import the file and inspect its summary before deciding how to handle a matching plan ID. Importing as a new plan keeps the existing record; replacing it should be an explicit choice.
PDF, CSV, ICS, and SVG are useful working outputs, but they serve different purposes. They do not replace the versioned backup that preserves the full editable plan. Keep the original JSON file if an importing version cannot read its format safely.
Keep notes you will use next time
A few concrete notes are easier to learn from than a long unstructured diary. Record the variety or method, why you moved a date, and which bed a batch used. When you compare seasons, you can then separate a changed assumption from a changed outcome.