This is where you can select what Diary information you wish to display. The selections here act as filters to show only the information you are currently interested in.

  1. Overview

    The main part of this tab is a set of fold out lists which are described below. For each of them there is an option to select All or None of the items; this is initially set to None (except for Plants, which is set to All). Until you select some entry types to be shown you cannot show anything and the Fetch button is inactive.

    If you use the little triangle drop down button at the left, a list of appropriate Diary entry types is shown with a check-box next to each entry. If you click the ‘All’ button all the check-boxes will be selected; if you click the ‘None’ button all the check boxes will be cleared. You can check or un-check individual boxes as you wish so if you are only interested in when you sowed tomatoes, set Husbandry to ‘None’ then check the ‘sow’ box, then set Plants to None and then check the ‘tomato’ box.

    In most cases you can edit the names and descriptions of the entries in these lists. Any such change is applied globally, so be careful!

    Except for the Plants fold-out, there is also a ‘New’ button for each type of Diary entry; this gives a quick way to add a new Diary entry.

  2. Date Selection

    This allows you to show only those diary entries between two dates. If the ‘From’ date is left unset the list will start with the earliest entry in the Diary. If the ‘To’ date is left unset, all entries up to the most recent will be shown. If both dates are left unset there is no filtering on date.

    For convenience, there is a drop-down selection of preset Periods which are self explanatory; selecting one of these will set the appropriate values in the date fields (which you can further adjust if you wish). Note that ‘This year’ means the current calendar year which is not particularly useful early in the year; ‘Last year’ is the previous calendar year.

    You can clear either date by just selecting the current value and deleting it.

  3. Husbandry

    This allows you to show only those Diary entries for specific Husbandry events. Husbandry events are roughly the life cycle stages of a crop; all Husbandry entries must refer to a specific plant species or variety.

  4. Groundwork

    This allows you to show Diary entries for the various types of groundwork. Groundwork covers those activities which are the general preparation, clearing up and maintenance activities which are not necessarily associated with a specific crop - such as digging.

  5. Pest & Diseases

    This allows you to show Diary entries for those disasters which befall us all such as red spider mite or potato blight.

  6. Purchases

    This allows you to show Diary entries recording Purchases. The drop-down list is more complex here; three separate lists are available allowing you to select by Retailer, Brand and Product Category. Product Category specifies what sort of Product you bought, such as seeds or compost. Some Product Categories are marked as ‘plant like’, such as seeds or bare-root plants; ‘plant like’ Products show as Plant Species and Varieties whereas other Products are just free form text, such as ‘compost’ or ‘tomato feed’. Purchases are also filtered through the Plants selection.

    Please note that this application is not intended as any sort of book-keeping application. Purchases of plant like items are a good starting point for a crop&apos's History and it can be quite useful to have an easy check on, say, how much compost you bought in a given year (in my case a surprisingly large amount!)

  7. Weather

    This allows you to show Diary entries for specific types of weather, such as frost or rain. Weather entries are weather type and severity; these values are just free form text. It is often useful to record frosts to have a record of earliest and latest frosts, especially in our changing climate.

  8. Wildlife

    This allows you to show show Diary entries for any wildlife observations you may have made, such as hearing a cuckoo or spotting the first swallows of summer. Entries are by wildlife type and species which are whatever you want them to be.

  9. Sales

    This allows you to show any Sales you have recorded. Please note that this application is not intended as any sort of book-keeping application and any Sales entry is entirely up to you. A Sale acts as an end point in the History of a crop. Note that any Sale must be for a plant.

  10. Plants

    This is a particularly useful filter as you can use it to track entries for given plant types, such as all the events relating to, say, tomatoes. This is a bit different from using the History of a given crop as you may have sown several varieties of tomato and History can only show a single sowing's History.

    The Plants are shown as a ‘tree’ of Plant Species with Varieties beneath them. You can (de)select whole species of individual varieties within a species.

  11. Fetch Button

    When you have selected what you want to see, use this button to fetch the values and display them on the Diary tab