Hoosier gardeners universally regard Mother’s Day as the last frost date. This means any date past Mother’s Day — which fell on Sunday May 12th this year — is a fine time for sticking warm weather veggies and seeds in the ground. Even after an unusually wet, cold spring, the day on which you’re reading this is probably far removed from the potential of another frost. That’s good news.
If you are still ramping up to do some planting, and have an iPad or iPhone, why not leverage the free garden planning app “Garden Bilder,” created by local, Indy-based Beefsteak Software. You can download the app here: http://appstore.com/gardenbilder
Garden Bilder was created for urban gardeners with small backyards and small community garden plots. Perhaps you’re wondering “what benefits, if any, can I possibly get from planning a small garden with a small app?” We’ll look at two examples of just what is possible when you use Garden Bilder prior to planting.
Estimating Yield
Garden Bilder helps you estimate yield, giving you a good idea of how many plants you’ll want or need in your garden. Here is an example: we created a small potato ‘garden’ in the app, then reviewed the yield estimate in the app’s report. Afterward we planted in our small urban garden here at Beefsteak Software exactly what we created in the app.
Garden Bilder gave us a good idea of the type of yield we’d see from a little potato garden. We actually are experimenting with a new way to grow potatoes in hopes of blowing through this yield estimate, but at the very least, we should see a decent 40lbs of Yukon Gold’s some time in September.
Gardens of any size can benefit from the yield estimates contained in Garden Bilder. These estimates are based on years of gardening experience, tons of research, and common sense. Our final estimated yields also factor in average nutrient soil profiles, not-quite-stellar watering and fickle TLC, and typical sunlight for urban gardens (i.e., shade).
Improving Yield
Another way to leverage Garden Bilder is to experiment. Garden Bilder is for beginning gardeners and experienced gardeners, both of whom can benefit from using the app. In fact, experienced gardeners may benefit most from ‘messing around’ with Garden Bilder. Gardeners who think they have it all figured out may be in for a surprise or two. Here’s an example: Garden Bilder can reveal new, more productive ways to arrange beds.
Making adjustments in plans before planting is easy, saving time and money.
For the past eight years the largest bed in Beefsteak’s small, urban, garden has had diagonal rows. Every year tomatoes were planted in this bed, diagonally. Eventually the soil gave out, so beans will go in the bed this year in hopes of resuscitating the soil. Expecting the typical diagonal row layout to be ‘fine,’ we created the bed in Garden Bilder, planted some “Bountiful” bush beans, then looked at the yield. It looked fine, but maybe we could do better?
So we deleted the rows and started over, creating a series of rows that are easy to access front and back. This new arrangement gave us nearly triple the yield. We are now in the process of tearing out the old diagonal rows and ramping up for beans to be put in the ground the weekend after this article appears.
These two examples scratch the surface of the benefits of using the Garden Bilder app to create better gardens. One of the most powerful features is sharing, which you can do directly in the app. Create an online conversation about your garden with friends and fellow gardeners, then set up a barter system to create your own, local CSA.
If you’ve waited to plant, or are way ahead of the game, Garden Bilder can help you plan the next garden, whenever it gets planted. Take advantage of this free app for every growing season, including this one. Summer is almost here!
