Never thought I’d say those words!

So here’s the thing, I’m planning our garden for this summer. Like last year I’m doing the Square Foot Gardening system. Andy built us a raised garden bed and it’s split into 28, 1sq ft sections. Each sq ft will get a certain number of seeds depending on what you’re planting. For example, 1 pepper seed would go in a square while you plant several carrot seeds in another square. The book Square Foot Gardening by Mel Batholomew has an exhaustive list of vegetables, how many seeds per square, when to plant indoors, transplant to the garden and when to harvest.

You can stagger plantings so you don’t have a whole bunch of the same vegetable at once. Certain vegetables you can only plant and harvest once in a season, but when they’re done a square frees up and you can plant another crop. This is kind of where it gets complicated and something I didn’t bother with last year (our first year). Knowing when one thing ends and when you can begin another…or when to start your staggered crops to get the most out of the squares in your garden.

I tried figuring it all out in excel and on paper but my head just started to hurt at the possibilities. Depending on what vegetables you want to use, there are so many options. This Garden Planning Software seems to be exactly what I’m looking for…but after a trial you have to pay $25 a year for a subscription. Not happening! I can’t seem to find a free or open source version similar to it though. I asked Andy to make me one and he said absolutely not ;-) Yeah, it doesn’t really sound like fun to me either!