Planning Your Garden

Today I am taking a break from my seed catalog list. I have learned a tremendous amount several new words, ideas to incorporate into my farming career.

I have been ordering my catalogs and seeds, and now I have to figure out where am I going to plant/put them.

I need to do a little more research on companion gardening, before sending to print, but in the mean time, I think I will have a little fun with the following sites and their garden planning programs...

http://planagarden.bhg.com/planagarden/ with this site I was able to construct a close replica of last year's garden, this will make crop rotation easier. It was not as easy as it sounds. I had to create 3 separate gardens and then I had to print, cut and paste and label/identify objects. But the end result was definitely better than anything I could have done by hand and faster too.

added january 25, 2011 - http://gardenplanner.rhshumway.com/ - r h shumway's seed catalog just came in and viola there on page 5 an offering for a 30 day trial period for their garden software, no offense house and garden (program above) this program blows yours away. you can create your own garden, draw growing area, add vegetables, herbs and fruits from drop down menu, let the planner calculate how many plants you'll need. you can use traditional row spacing, raised beds or even foot gardening. it can send you personalized emails to remind you of your garden needs. $25.00 annually. but it too required that the garden be separated into areas, it had a circuit over load with my original size and locked up.

added january 27, 2011

http://www.smallblueprinter.com - this site is much easier than the two listed above - it has a ton of stuff to play with, requires very lit'l to get going, 14 day trial period. can be bought for $24.00. online support.

http://www.gardeners.com/Kitchen-Garden-Planner - kitchen garden planner, this site is very limited, but the raised bed / kitchen planner is a nice tool for just that planning the raised bed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening - this site is completely free. i experienced difficulty down loading this. will check with my kids and see if we can get this going. it looks like it would be very interesting.

http://www.5dollardinners.com - this web site offers four different kinds of pre-printed forms that you can down load, print and complete for your gardening record keeping and off line garden planning. this web site offers dinners that can be made for $5.00 or less, it deserves to be looked at. the recipes are not only the author's but from viewers every where. i have added it to my favorites.

http://www.gardendesignpro.co.uk/acatalog/free_garden_design_software.html - I am learning google sketch up with this - this is truly a fun site. gardening in 3D.

http://www.growveg.com/gardenplanner - this site offers a free 30 day trial period, after that $25.00 annually. i believe this is the same as the one above but not thru shumway's web site, this works better than the site above, experienced no problems with this site.