Digital Garden Planner: What You Get

What a digital garden planner gives you

A digital garden planner stores a plan where you can change it in seconds. The clearest example from an extension service is SOW, a free app from the University of Kentucky.

A University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension article describes what the app holds. Its library has information sheets and pictures of almost 40 common home garden vegetables. A My Garden area lets you add plants and design more than one garden at the same time. A Journal section takes the yield and harvest date once a crop is harvested.

The app also lets you enter a planting date in the future. It then adds that date to your phone's calendar as a reminder. That is a job paper cannot do.

What a digital garden planner leaves for you to do

An app answers for one place. The Kentucky article tells you to enter your state and county to get plant information for your hardiness zone, and it is written for Kentucky gardeners. Gardeners in another state have to find out whether a tool uses their dates before planning around it.

An app also does not decide anything for you. You still choose the crops, measure the plot and keep the notes. A Penn State Extension article says a journal is for your use, to provide what you want and need. The tool only holds what you type.

Digital garden planner or printed PDF: the same job, side by side

Every plan needs the same four parts, so the choice is about where they live. The table lists what each one gives you, using the Kentucky article for the app and the Garden PDF kits for the print.

Where a printed page wins: the whole plot at true scale

Scale is the clearest case. A paper plan has a fixed size, so you see the entire plot at once.

Take a 28 by 32 foot plot. At 1/4 inch to the foot, that is 28 times 0.25, which is 7 inches, by 32 times 0.25, which is 8 inches. The whole plot fits inside a Letter sheet at 8.5 by 11 inches with room for margins. A 4 by 8 foot raised bed at 1 inch to the foot is 4 by 8 inches.

The Winter Plan, one of four kits in the Garden Year bundle, prints bed plans at 1 inch to the foot and a whole-plot page at 1/4 inch to the foot, so you can lay out a bed and carry the page to it.

Set one up before the season in five steps

The steps are the same in an app and on paper. Extension services describe them without naming any tool.

1. Pick the site. University of Illinois Extension says most vegetable crops need at least 6 hours of daily sun.
2. Choose crops your household likes to eat. Iowa State lists "how many plants do you need" as one of eight things to weigh, and gives no per-person count, so use the spacing and yield numbers in your own state's table.
3. Draw the layout. Clemson Cooperative Extension says to plan the garden on paper first and draw a map showing the arrangement and spacing of crops. Put tall crops on the north side, as Illinois advises.
4. Add planting dates. Clemson suggests noting recommended varieties and planting dates, and says successive plantings of beans can extend the harvest.
5. Keep the first plan small. Iowa State calls about 100 square feet (10 by 10 feet) a manageable start, and says many new gardeners do better with 4 by 8 feet.

Mistakes follow from the same pages. Clemson says not to plant more garden than you need. Clemson's list of pitfalls also names planting too densely, shading short crops with tall ones and skipping crop rotation. Illinois says to keep the same family out of the same place more than once in every three years. A mid-season fix is to redraw the bed on a fresh copy and write the change beside the old plan, so you can see what moved. Clemson adds that you may need separate spring, summer and fall layouts.

Reminders work the same way. In SOW you enter a future planting date and the app adds it to your phone calendar. On paper you write the date on the dated page and the calendar page.

Keep the one you will open in July

Records fade when a plan asks too much. The Penn State article says it is better to start small and add content as you go than to ask too much of yourself and give up. It also says to schedule journal time daily, weekly or monthly until it becomes a habit.

Iowa State University Extension says you need only a notebook or a digital app, and that journaling can be done with notebooks, phones or tablets. It lists planting dates, harvest dates, harvest amounts, garden maps and what thrived or failed as things to record.

A garden plan only works if you still open it in July.

When a digital garden planner is the better pick

A digital garden planner is the right choice if you garden in Kentucky and want SOW, which is free. It also fits when you want a reminder on your phone, or rework your layout often and would rather edit than erase. Free extension charts and graph paper are enough when you need one state's dates and a rough sketch.

For a page to write on in the garden and a plot you see at once, the Garden Year is built for that. Its dates count from your own last-frost date, backed by a 108-station freeze table, so no state has to be picked. Winter fills the Winter Plan's bed plans, summer the Season Record's planting log and harvest tally, and the carry forward page closes the year.