HALF MOON BAY, Calif. — Just after First Lady, Michelle Obama, broke ground for the White House vegetable garden, Plangarden released an online interactive version of the Obama’s organic garden layout. The interactive vegetable garden layout was built using the new 2.0 version of Plangarden’s garden design software. The White House vegetable garden is irregularly-shaped. Plangarden utilized the new rotate features to recreate even the stepping stones and non-square edges of the garden beds. The round edges were done using the curve feature. Plangarden plans to maintain the garden views with up-to-date information as the garden plantings change from season to season (http://plangarden.com/app/index.php?userID=19050).
Many Plangarden blog visitors have commented favorably on the White House garden: http://plangarden.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/your-take-on-the-obama-vegetable-garden/. Some have suggested establishing a square foot gardening system which conserves water and space, as well as other design and produce variety considerations.
Not just for “celebrity vegetable garden voyeurs”
“With all the talk about tainted produce, sustainable gardening, reducing food miles, and the resurgence of victory and community gardens, new features are continually being requested and added to assist vegetable gardeners,” according to Plangarden creator and avid gardener, Roy Stahl.
A new, multiple garden area feature is especially popular among community gardeners who can collaborate under one user account. Plangarden provides up to five different gardening areas, each with a maximum gardening area of 5 acres (~2 hectares). Each gardening area has its own harvest and journal information.
For inexperienced gardeners, the new plant spacing feature takes the guesswork out of how far to plant seeds or seedlings from each other. But these parameters can be overridden for different gardening technique.
Plangarden also just released a handy online tool, “Grow Your Own Vegetables – Value Calculator” that estimates the value of produce from your vegetable garden in supermarket, farmer’s market, and organic produce dollars. This can help calculate how much can be saved on groceries as more families are being squeezed in this economic downturn. Variables, such as vegetable costs, can be modified by the user to best reflect local costs and currency units.
Vegetable garden design software helps visualize and plan layout in small yard spaces
New vegetable gardeners like L. Richardson, a blogger from South Carolina, have found Plangarden software useful in figuring out how much yard space can be allocated to her vegetable garden.
“I was able to pull out our plan and show my husband exactly how (our garden) would look and assure him that the expanded garden would take less than one third of the back yard. That bit of information even averted a marital dispute!” she laughs.
About Plangarden
Over 19,000 users from all over the world have discovered Plangarden, the first Web-based vegetable garden design application, that assists gardeners in visualizing, planning and recording gardening activities. Plangarden has been member-tested and recommended by the National Home Gardening Club. Users can sign up for a free 45-day trial. A full year subscription is available for $20/year or $36/3years. More information: http://www.plangarden.com .
