Review - GroOrganic's Garden Planner

Ever since I moved to Phoenix, where there is absolutely no foliage lushness, I wanted to grow a garden.  My attempt at tomatoes 8 years ago left me with 20 small tart tomatoes that I ended up throwing away.  

A couple of years later, my neighbors decided to start a vegetable garden, they produced so many fruits and veggies, they were giving them away!  So inspired by them, I planted a banana pepper plant, only to be eaten by stray cats by the next day.

I don't really know how to container garden.  I have no idea when to plant things, and when to harvest them, especially in my climate.  My dream of having a great garden diminished, but never really went away.

So I was real excited when I got the opportunity to review GroOrganic.com’s garden planner.  GroOrganic.com is a website which provides all sorts of information and supplies for organic gardening.  And if you read my article on organic foods, this is the way you want to go with your garden.

The Garden Planner was so easy to use, and their video tutorials make it clear how to use them.  After you log in to your account, the first step is to provide your zip code so it can automatically pick your frost dates.  (You can also punch in your frost dates manually.)  

Then you create a new planner, and specify the size of your growing area.

A grid screen of your area is created and using the tools they provide, you map out your gardening containers.  I used brown boxes.

You then use their list of selected plants to drag and drop onto your growing area.  If you click the 'i' next to the plant you select, a window pops up telling you planting guidelines for that plant.  If you do not see the plant you want to use, you can click on a general plant and add your own variety.

Once you drag and drop your plant onto the planting area, you can drag that plant's handles to fill in the space you want to use for planting.  The background color of that plant shows you how much space is need for that plant.  When you hover over the plant, it tells you how many plants to plant.

When you've completed your grid, you click on the button that shows you the entire year of when to sow, plant and harvest your crops, based on your area's frost dates.  Just what I need!

There is so much more you can do with this planner.  You can plan for the next year using your saved grid layout, and also plan for succession planting.  I absolutely loved this planner and I'm going to use it.  My husband and I already bought a cucumber and zucchini plant to start.  We'll see if the cats stay out of them!

Try out the garden planner here.

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