Hi everyone,
I am embarking on my first in-ground garden (until now I've been limited to containers.) I'm very excited but it's a much bigger undertaking than I'm used to. I'm wondering if there is a good app, website, or software that will help me plan and organize my garden. Specifically I'm thinking of something that might alert me to companion plant opportunities, incompatible plants, how much space each plant needs, appropriate sowing time, when to start seedlings indoors, and similar details. Obviously I can look all this up myself for each plant (and I do already have experience with a lot of it, but not on this scale) but it would be great to have some place to organize it all other than by maintaining a complicated spreadsheet. I have found some nice-looking apps and websites, but none of them have the combination of features I'm looking for. I'm not really concerned about the cost as long as it's not outrageous.
Any ideas? I'm not really looking for indexes or guides; something interactive and customizable would be best for me.
Thank you!
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astralsled
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lexusnexus
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I've looked and tried a few of them and, honestly, found them to be both far too complicated for my feeble mind and limited in scope. What has worked best for me is to pull out a pad of 1/4" grid paper and a pencil. The grid gives me scale and the pencil allows me to correct and move. Then again, I'm of an age that a paper map and a compass don't intimidate me either.
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applestar
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I'm sorry but that's a funny question to ask on a website for a gardening forum. I mean this is like a think tank or brain trust of experiences and compendium of information. Totally interactive and customizable in as much detail as you want to ask....
We are not professional writers compiling data scraped together from what other people have written about but are gardener's with dirt under our fingernails, sitting around exchanging ideas and suggestions based on our own direct/personal experiences. Someone here probably has similar experience in similar conditions to your own and you could be as specific as you want -- something that I would be surprised any app could manage.
Some of us might even tell you things you didn't even think to ask.
Moreover, it's very likely that someone else has already asked the very same question -- there are amazing amount of archived information here that I'm still finding for the first time sometimes.
We are not professional writers compiling data scraped together from what other people have written about but are gardener's with dirt under our fingernails, sitting around exchanging ideas and suggestions based on our own direct/personal experiences. Someone here probably has similar experience in similar conditions to your own and you could be as specific as you want -- something that I would be surprised any app could manage.
Some of us might even tell you things you didn't even think to ask.
Moreover, it's very likely that someone else has already asked the very same question -- there are amazing amount of archived information here that I'm still finding for the first time sometimes.
There are garden planners and there are websites for companion planting, but in the world of gardening there are so many other factors to consider like your micro environment, soil, location, season, what you like to eat, how you water, how much time you have to work on the garden, etc.
A lot of gardening is self taught, usually by trial and error. A garden always has something new to teach you, the first lesson is that nothing is accomplished without good soil preparation and a lot of hard work.
A lot of gardening is self taught, usually by trial and error. A garden always has something new to teach you, the first lesson is that nothing is accomplished without good soil preparation and a lot of hard work.
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applestar
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You have your own wealth of information that we would love to ask about. What you know will be invaluable new information for someone else.
I know we've had discussions about how we each organize gardening information, and truth to tell, I think we all more or less do what you are doing. Some in more detail than others.
I have yet to find a single app or even a single spreadsheet that can encompass all the information I want to record and need to plan my garden each season. I would guess I do a lot of my planning using iPad Numbers. I seem to be opening that app a lot right now. It has some unique capabilities that is great for sketching and planning the garden beds. It's spreadsheet functions are great for calculating and tracking date field data like days to germination and harvesting.
But I have ended up creating three different projects customized to different requirements, and Numbers can't reference each other's cells or tables or sheets (I don't know if that's different on the desktop version). I'd like to be able to make changes/corrections in one and have the others reflect that.
It has some other limitations: I need It to be able to manage series of nested sort parameters. For tracking some complex information, I need a relational database that can handle the 3-D and maybe even 4-D correlations and be able to handle multiple associated images both local and weblinks -- that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I'm playing with a home inventory app right now to see if I can modify the parameters. I also need a drawing app that can handle more elaborate drawings than just fixed geometric shapes, handle layers and group objects.
I can post examples screen shots if you would like to see.
I know we've had discussions about how we each organize gardening information, and truth to tell, I think we all more or less do what you are doing. Some in more detail than others.
I have yet to find a single app or even a single spreadsheet that can encompass all the information I want to record and need to plan my garden each season. I would guess I do a lot of my planning using iPad Numbers. I seem to be opening that app a lot right now. It has some unique capabilities that is great for sketching and planning the garden beds. It's spreadsheet functions are great for calculating and tracking date field data like days to germination and harvesting.
But I have ended up creating three different projects customized to different requirements, and Numbers can't reference each other's cells or tables or sheets (I don't know if that's different on the desktop version). I'd like to be able to make changes/corrections in one and have the others reflect that.
It has some other limitations: I need It to be able to manage series of nested sort parameters. For tracking some complex information, I need a relational database that can handle the 3-D and maybe even 4-D correlations and be able to handle multiple associated images both local and weblinks -- that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I'm playing with a home inventory app right now to see if I can modify the parameters. I also need a drawing app that can handle more elaborate drawings than just fixed geometric shapes, handle layers and group objects.
I can post examples screen shots if you would like to see.