Free Garden Planning Software

Free Vegetable Garden Planning Software - Easy and You Can't Beat the Price!

If you want to plan your garden more easily, there are a number of software applications on the market to help you create your design.  Several are traditional programs that you buy and load onto your computer and there are even a few where you pay a annual subscription fee ($20/year) and use online design tools to create your garden plan.

How Garden Planning Software Works

All of these programs follow the same basic procedure -- you create the layout of your garden by entering in it's dimensions, and then choose from a menu of vegetables which you drag and drop onto the layout.  The program automatically calculates the area needed for the vegetable you've selected.

Some of the more sophisticated features within theses programs include:

• Ability to create irregularly sized garden plots.
• Capability to add garden features such as a pond, bench, wall or trellis.
  
• Provision of log books which allows you to record the quantity of each veggie that you've harvested
• Automatic alerts to let you know when it's time to weed etc. 
  
• Detailed planting and care information on the veggies you've put into your garden design.

While I appreciate these extra features, they are more than many of us really need.  I personally believe that most of the value in these programs is derived from the drag and drop layout and the ease at which you can make changes to your garden design.

A Simple & Free Program

If all you want is the basic layout feature, there's some good news. 

Gardener's Supply, a gardening retailer with an online web site, let's gardeners use a program called "Kitchen Garden Planner" for free.  The program is very easy to use and when your done, you can print out your design out or e-mail it to yourself.  The software places your garden design on a 1 foot x 1 foot grid and notes how many of each vegetable can be planted in each square.

In addition to the garden plan, you will automatically be given planting instructions for any veggie you add to your plan. (see below photos which show a 4 foot by 12 foot garden plan and planting information for two of the veggies selected in the plan)

Kitchen Garden Planner Limitations

However, there are a few limitations to using Kitchen Garden Planner that you should be aware of:

• No irregularly shaped garden designs - squares and rectangles only.
• The maximum dimensions you can set for your plan are 4 feet x 12 feet.  If your garden is bigger than that, the work-around is to plan several smaller gardens using the online tool.
• The program saves your last garden design, but if you need to do several designs as mentioned above, you can only keep the last one.  If you need to cobble together several smaller plans, your should e-mail each plan to yourself so you have a record of it.
• The list of veggies you can choose from is also pretty basic.  You'll find tomatoes, carrots, beets, corn, cabbage etc. but not more exotic veggies like chard, artichokes, asparagus, or salsify.
  
• There's no provision for companion planting.
  

The Gardener's Supply online tool is very basic but it's easy to use and the price is right.  In my book, it's a winner.  Have a look and see if it works for you.  The website address is www.Gardeners.com.

If you decide to give it a try, post a comment and let me know if you like the software.

Comments

[H. Mark Delman]

Hi Joann:

I didnt develop this garden planner. Its a free tool offered on the Gardeners Supply web site. If its not printing out properly, you would need to contact them.

Alternatively, you could use one of several other free online tools. I know Territorial Seed Company now has a similar planner on their web site that is Free to try for a month. If you just want to do a plan and dont care about saving it, you could use the free trial. A more complicated, but totally free planner, is offered at SmartGardener.com. They make money if you order seeds through them, not from selling the planner as a service.

I hope this
helps. Good luck with your 2012 garden and thanks for visiting my blog.

-PlanterTomato

[lro78]

Hello,
in case your are interested, I developped a free online vegetable garden planner that allows to draw your vegetable garden and manage the related gardening tasks. It also includes a useful companion planting feature. Available here : http://www.egardenpad.com
Your comments are very welcome.
Good evening