Funny, that you mention that. I have been thinking of doing the same thing writing it in C# using the .net platform and windows forms library along with some custom controls that I have written. I worked in the software industry for over 25 years and started programming using punched cards on a Honeywell level 62.

I have not really decided yet if I want to commit the time to this but if I do maybe I will give you some friendly competition :)

Cool!

Python and Django FTW!

I have the time, love playing with new programs and have a little bit of knowledge about garden planning. I'd be willing to give it a try if you want.

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

Umm....No. You can count me out. Who needs software for doing this? Graph paper works great for most people.

EG

WOOHOO!! Graph paper!

If it ain't broke....

Sounds like a great database, but I need to feel the pen and paper in my hands.

I don't guess I understand what makes the software so special or something that you would need. Can you let us in on how it would benefit most SFG'ers so we can get the feel of what you're going to be doing with it?

Blessings,
Angela

I can totally understand the need to use paper and pen - I love the immediacy of them too. I guess I'm just one of those people that loves getting things onto the computer.

As I mentioned, it's something I've been doing for myself really, that I plan on letting others use. If you want to, great. If not, that's great too.

Amonst other things, the features that it (nearly) has at the moment that are helpful to me are:

* an automatic todo list - so I can say I want to plant these particular seeds, and it'll generate a list - late winter, prepare square 2, late spring plant 4 seeds, early autumn harvest etc. This can be manually modified and added to, but it stops me forgetting things and keeps me organised.

* crop rotation reminder - it remembers what's been in each square and when, so it'll flag up if I'm following on with the wrong thing to keep my rotations in order.

* a journal - again, tied in with the todo list, I can add notes to each todo thing, add pictures etc and have a complete, searchable instantly accessible record of everything I've done in my garden.

* shopping lists - not yet, but it's going to keep a record of my seed suppliers and what I've bought from them. I'd like it to help me when I'm doing my seed ordering, so I can quickly reorder things that were successful, and not bother with things that weren't.

There's loads of other things I'm planning for it (recording plot characteristics - like soil pH, frost dates and the like to help with planning, yield recording - expected vs actual etc) but again, these are all things that my obsessive scientific (I was an industrial chemist before getting into programming) brain wants to record. If you're happy with your system, I'd be the last person to try and change that.

David

You had me at "hello"... oh, I mean at "an automatic todo list".

I'm also one of those people that likes to be organized with stuff on the computer rather than paper, but that's just me... each to his own.

Blessings,
Angela

I basically have most of those things already, but scattered all over in different folders so I have to search for everything I want. I think a program to keep everything organized would be quite useful.

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

Well, for those of you who are interested in having a go when it's ready (like I said, for a few users in a week or so, for more folks in a couple of months) just go to www.squarefootgardenplanner.com/users/signup and leave your name and email address and I'll let you know.

There's *nothing* on the live site at the moment (not even proper text, it's all just dummy pig-latin) so don't expect much straight away :)

Well, it won't let me use Annie's as a first name and Granny as a last name, so guess I'll have to pass. I keep my real name private, even in this group.

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

... and these are the reasons that I need testers ;)

Should work now Annie's Granny. I was being a little too restrictive over the characters that you can have in your name. Should be fine now.

David

OK, I'll try again. I could have been Annie Granny I guess, but that just sounds wrong, since Annie is my dog not me ;-)

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

OK, that worked. See you soon, David.

Granny

Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

I haven't posted here because I figured my lack of computer skills would proclude me. The more I see about computers the less I understand. And to think I used to program on the C64, hehe. Call me a causualty od Moore's Law.

That said, maybe it's my non-existant drawing skills, but I did all my planning on Excel and would welcome a better tool.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sinfonian's garden adventure

I'd be interested in this tool as well. I have a master (paper) journal and odd notes, etc. This sounds like this could help keep me organized.

Would it possibly be able to include reminders to start seedlings for mid-season replacement planning? :)

-Reni

i'd love to do this, why not be a "tester" i have NO organizational skills whatsoever!! its a foreign language to me!! LOL ~Medo

Ooooh, I'm so excited! I just signed up, so I'm special!

No, really I am... hee hee... I'm not that good of a gardener yet, like most of the SFG'ers so I'm probably enough of a newbie to give you at least that take on using the software.

Blessings,
Angela

northlochs,

Like your use of. Lorem Ipsum. It's been a while since I've seen that.

Thanks for the response folks - from this forum and another couple, I've got a fair number of initial test users to try the system out and help with it's development, so thanks for your interest.

I'll be in touch with you all separately off-forum within the next few days, and I'll introduce you to the features that are there shortly.

Thanks again,
David

Hi,

I just found this thread looking for different resources and information about square foot gardening and I think that its a wonderful idea to create such a system to facilitate and give to the SFGers more resources.

If you need more people to test your website and/or software you can count me in. I have good experience working with website development using some open source CMS software. I also have excellent computer and Internet skills. I had been practicing the SFG method for some time and right now I am creating a SFG program in my country to teach in schools and communities.

I am really interested in helping you develop this project for free. I already went to your web page and sign up for an account. My name is Marcos A. Cappa and my email is marcos_a_cappa(at)hotmail.com

I'd love to help out. Drop me a line if you are still looking for people. (former network engineer/systems admin)

I can help test. I'm a newbie veggie gardener (just laid out my lasagna bed for spring) but I've been programming since college.
What did you code it in?