Try GRIT’s Food Garden Planner!
Your garden looks fantastic, and the bountiful harvest has kept you busy these last few weeks. But the goodness is winding down, and you’re looking to the future. Those fall crops are many, and they thrive in the brisk fall temperatures. So as you plan your fall crops – and start thinking about next year’s efforts – take a look at Grit’s Food Garden Planner (http://gardenplanner.grit.com/gardenplanner/gardenplanner.html).
A unique interactive tool for gardeners everywhere, the Garden Planner offers you the digital means to plan that plot of plenty, for this fall, for next year and for years to come. You draw a plot, place the plants where you want them and the program automatically gives each plant the space it needs. All it takes is a click of a mouse or a few key strokes. You save your plans for later reference, rearrange your plots or raised beds as the whim strikes, and you can build on each year’s plans by using the “Follow-on Plan” feature to make your next garden the best it’s ever been. It even indicates the best plan for crop rotation, a feature that helps keep your soil in the best shape possible.
The program gives you planting information based on your location, provides the best plants for your region and details when to plant and when you can expect to harvest. It offers you a choice of a wide variety of plants – vegetables, flowers, bushes, trees – as well as objects found in gardens – fences, greenhouses, cold frames, raised beds and more. You can personalize your plans, just like you personalize your garden space.
Share your garden plans or check other plans with the Garden Plans gallery (http://gardenplanner.grit.com/garden-plans.aspx), brush up on skills with the video tutorial series (http://www.youtube.com/user/GrowVeg?feature=watch), and log in for more information on gardens and gardening (http://gardenplanner.grit.com/gardenplanner/gardenplanner.html).
You can try out the Garden Planner for free for 30 days. The subscription after that is only $25 a year. Go to the information page for everything you need to know (http://gardenplanner.grit.com/gardenplanner/gardenplanner.html).
We even offer gift certificates so you can surprise your favorite gardener with the Food Garden Planner. She’ll love the gift and the planner for years to come. If you have questions or suggestions about the Food Garden Planner website or the services we offer, we’d love to hear from you. Just use our Contact Form (http://www.grit.com/garden-planner/inquiry.aspx), or use the comment section below.
We’ll do everything we can to help you plant the cream of the crop!
Garden Planning: Can't Wait to Dig In
My mailbox has been filling up in recent weeks. While a part of me hates to think of the number of trees that have been sacrificed to produce this year's crop of seed catalogs, another part of me is jumping up and down with glee.
It is finally time to begin planning the 2012 garden. That's right! Regardless of whether or not the world ends on December 21st (as predicted by the Mayans)we still want fresh veggies to enjoy throughout the summer and fall.
I always approach the garden with such optimism. The plan usually includes some innovative design plot that I've seen over the years at nearby Cornell University. When I'm in garden planning mode, weeds drought and garden pests don't exist. Instead, every vegetable is envisioned in a blemish free state and is the epitome of perfection.
Despite all of the choices offered by the seed companies, we actually buy very little. We have lots of commercially packaged seed from prior gardening years. We are also fairly good seed savers with much of the saved seed coming from heirloom & non-hybrid vegetable varieties. This means that we will see fairly consistent results from the seeds that we collect each year.
Last year, we grew groundcherries for the first time. Related to the tomato, the plants were started in the greenhouse and did very well in our soil. Those seeds were the result of a particularly wonderful seed swap that we do with an internet friend in Wyoming.
We have seeds to grow the things that we like to eat & some for things that we don't! Unloved seeds, like okra and rutabaga, are traded away to people that actually (shudder) like to eat them. Seed swaps are an excellent way to taste test new veggies and to see if they will do well in your type of soil.
Each year, we decide to try a few new varieties of something but we try to spend exactly $26. Why $26? Because many of the seed companies offer free shipping or discount coupons redeemable on purchases over $25. A good portion of that $26 is spent on permaculture. Things that we can plant once and reap the harvest from for a number of years. Though I love to garden, I really don't like to work so hard at it!
Decoding Seed Packets!
It’s that time of year again. Seed catalogs are starting to pile up everywhere throughout the house. And I mean everywhere. I don’t think there’s a single room that doesn’t have at least one catalogue. Each of them is filled with sticky notes, folded pages, and pen marks. Mostly I’ve scribbled X’s and O’s but there’s quite a few ?’s as well.I’m always fascinated to read about all the different varieties, and their photos are a welcomed splash of green in the dead of winter, but all of my question marks were related to a bunch of odd abbreviations and a few new words. What do they mean?Heirloom, this is an old variety that owes its existence in large part to the seed-saving efforts of amateurs. These may have been commonly grown during earlier periods in human history, but are not used in modern large-scale agriculture. Many heirloom vegetables have kept their traits through open pollination, while fruit varieties such as apples have been propagated over the centuries through grafts and cuttings.Hybrid, this is the offspring of a cross between two or more varieties, usually of the same species. You’re a hybrid of your mom and dad, while a liger is the cross between a lion and a tiger. No, really, I’m not kidding.
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