Online Garden Planner

Does anyone use a garden planner program?  The Garden Planner on GroVeg.com looks pretty good - they even have a SFG mode.

the old farmers almanac's website has an online garden planner with a 30 day free trial.

I tried one a few years back but found out that it was a hassle for me to always be getting on the site to make a change or add something or remove something.
These days I use a pen and paper in a kid's composition book, a new one each year.  I make changes at will.  I start with an early garden plan, that changes every few weeks as I have a new idea or thought.  I jot down notes about a crop I'm growing or good luck or bad luck or pests or weather and its always at my fingertips.
I'm grateful for the old-fashioned method of keeping records.

Not exactly the same. But this post reminded me of this. I purchased this last year and absolutely love it.

10 Year Garden Journal

Most of these are the same, or quite similar.  I currently use the one at Territorial Seed.

This one is my favorite, because it's free, easy, and it saves your plans:

http://www.gardeners.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Gardeners-Site/default/Page-KGPJS

You don't have a huge amount of control, but I think it's perfect for a SFG garden.

ralitaco wrote:the old farmers almanac's website has an online garden planner with a 30 day free trial.

I use this. It's alright, and does have the SFG mode. My only complaint about that is that in SFG mode you are not able to split squares. For example, it says 16 carrots per square, same for green onions. Now if I have 3 squares available and want to do a square that is half and half, it won't really allow for that. You can overlap, but the numbers are off then.

Or if you want half square rows of carrots, next to a half square row of onions (or whatever), then it won't let you really do that, either.

You can in non-sfg mode, but then it uses standard planting guidelines and numbers. So either way you do it your numbers are going to be off.


I will say it is pretty handy though overall. I ended up using a hybrid between that and paper/pencil.

By the time I looked at different online planners and spent time figuring out how to replicate my different size boxes and input plant data I could have it quickly penciled in a kids composition notebook.  When I'm outside the notebook and pencil goes with me.  Easy to enter on the spot garden changes.  In the past I tried to make garden notes outdoors on the smartphone, that's a joke, can hardly see the screen.

http://www.vegetable-gardening-online.com/

I use several of the downloads from here.

vortex wrote:

ralitaco wrote:the old farmers almanac's website has an online garden planner with a 30 day free trial.

I use this. It's alright, and does have the SFG mode. My only complaint about that is that in SFG mode you are not able to split squares. For example, it says 16 carrots per square, same for green onions. Now if I have 3 squares available and want to do a square that is half and half, it won't really allow for that. You can overlap, but the numbers are off then.

Or if you want half square rows of carrots, next to a half square row of onions (or whatever), then it won't let you really do that, either.

You can in non-sfg mode, but then it uses standard planting guidelines and numbers. So either way you do it your numbers are going to be off.

I will say it is pretty handy though overall. I ended up using a hybrid between that and paper/pencil.

I use this same planner. There's a work-around I figured out for non-perfectly-square "squares". Go into non-sfg mode, then click the veggie you want, then go into the edit box and change the spacing between plants, rows, etc. to what they should be in SFG. You can then create a "row" that's actually a "square" in practice.

What I like about this planner is that it allows me to forward the plan from one year to the next, keeping the perennials and reminding me to use rotation by blinking in RED if I am about to put toms in where the potatoes were, etc. I like to try and rotate as much as I can. The one year where I disregarded and put toms in where they had grown in the previous season, I had a lot more disease issues. It may have been a coincidence, but I'd rather not take that chance again.

I also recently downloaded the iPad app for this planner. I find it easier to input plants from my laptop, but it's very handy to have the iPad to lug into the garden with me; helps me to visualize.

That being said, I still do also use the old-fashioned pencil and paper to make quick notes, etc.

I personally use an excel file I created - I create a plan in it, then, print it and take it outside with me.  As I make changes, I put notes on my paper - the go back and make adjustments on my file.  I like this method because I have previous garden plans saved and can access them so I can rotate my crops.  I also notate when I plant everything so I can keep track if I'm trying to plant for continuous harvesting.  I color code things and am able to add gardens as I build them.  Also, I don't have to go online - if the internet is down for some reason...Like a lot of others, I'm still a paper person - I keep it in a page protector in a binder with all my other reference materials.  This also helps the DH so he know what is planted where and what  beds / squares are empty...

Kristinz,
I also do my garden plans on my excel spreadsheet.
Each spreadsheet is for the year with the tabs for each of my garden beds.
I print them and put them into a binder in plastic sheets.

I print the garden plans, revise, update, etc., as needed and store on my computer.

It is wonderful that we have so many website planning gardens online and also have the opportunity to do it other ways.

None of the types of garden planning are wrong, they are all great for anyone it is just a matter of preference.

Now I think I will take another look at my garden plans....lol