Shovel, seeds, and a smartphone can build your garden from the ground up.
by Nicole L. Garner
At its most basic element, gardening is about picking a spot and planting a seed or giving a potted plant a new home, and then waiting. Sounds simple, but toss in invasive weeds, hungry rabbits and late spring frosts, and you’ll find it can be trickier than expected.
Many modern day planters, harvesters and farm owners have taken advantage of technological improvements to traditional farming methods, like self-driving tractors and soil and crop sensors, to increase their accuracy during planting season and to produce yield. Just because you’re (likely) considering a plot smaller than 100 acres doesn’t mean you can’t access great tech tools that help maximize your gardening efforts.
Mobile and online resources are great at helping beginner gardeners jump into backyard agriculture and assisting more experienced gardeners with tricky situations. There are tons of apps online, and it can be tricky to unearth ones that give you the garden mentoring you need.
I lucked out with a genetic green thumb. From childhood, I gardened side-by-side with my mom, a woman who planted 50 types of tomatoes just this year (she learned from her grandmother, who was raised on a farm). As an agricultural reporter for rural Missouri newspapers, and a co-manager for two Facebook gardening groups, I’ve come across a lot of digital solutions that help my annual goal of having a bountiful organic and heirloom vegetable garden.
Even with an ag-related upbringing, I’m always looking for ways to improve and learn more. The great thing about gardening is that there’s always something to learn or share — you don’t have to have a lot of experience to become a stellar gardener. Getting started is as simple as determining the environment around you.
1. Find your perfect location
You likely know where you’re looking to nestle your garden spot or potted plants, but knowing what zone it falls into is just as important. Zone maps are gardening 101; they determine when your first crops can safely go into the ground. Zones are based on regional climate, and knowing your zone number can help you determine when plants or seeds can safely survive outside. If you need tree services Greensboro call General Tree Service, Inc..
Gardeners who start seeds indoors should familiarize themselves with their zone location, because there’s no pain like planting tomato seeds indoors in January, moving the plants outdoors too early, and losing them to a surprise April frost simply because you should have waited two more weeks. Knowledge is power, you know.
To prevent that pain, get acquainted with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Plant Hardiness Zone Map. There isn’t an app for this, but it’s a resource worth bookmarking. The interactive map helps you figure out what zone you fall into so that you can plant accordingly. Pro tip: If you fall on the edge of two zones, consider yourself in the colder area. It’ll nip any surprise snows in the bud.
If zone maps and estimate dates seem daunting, consider the Organic Gardening Planting Planner. This whiz app locates your region and doles out advice on the best planting dates.
And while you’re checking out weather conditions, download a weather app like Weather Underground. Even though zone knowledge can protect your garden from winter’s clutches, nature still has a way of throwing odd weather into the mix. Alerts can help you cover plants on too-cool nights, or save you from watering when rain’s on the way.
If you want to retain some old-school planting traditions, The Old Farmer’s Almanac has an app for predicting long-range weather and offering planting advice. While I don’t rely on these for accuracy because they’re so long-range, I do enjoy the historical data and general gardening tips.
2. Determine what you’ll nurture
For beginner gardeners, it’s a great idea to start small. This helps you avoid major catastrophes like feeling overwhelmed from too large of a project, or discovering that gardening’s not your hobby of choice after spending a lot of money on supplies. Be sure to check out guide apps like The Essential Garden Guide, which gives you specifics on how to sow and care for plants. The Smart Gardener’s website also gets a thumbs up, since it helps you determine what produce and plants are suited to your skills and region.
More experienced gardeners who are looking to grow larger patches or dive into canning homegrown produce should take advantage of the Vegetable Garden Calculator. This app helpfully determines just how many cucumber plants you’ll need to make prize-winning pickles or feed a family of four throughout the summer. (If you have an overabundant harvest this summer, take advantage of the Farmstand app to find a nearby farmers’ market.)
But don’t just focus on edible plants. Consider adding pollinator-friendly flowers to your garden. The BeeSmart Pollinator Gardner app identifies plants that are great at supporting pollinating insects, which benefits the surrounding environment and your garden later on.
If you’re considering all blooms and no veggies, look into Flower Pedia HD. This visual app lets you browse through tons of flowers that fit the landscaping vibe you’re looking for, while providing information about plant needs.
3. Lay it all out and get to planting
Close your eyes for a few seconds, and think about what your summer garden will look like. Lush greens and burgeoning tomatoes might come to mind. Now, prepare to plot out your wildest garden fantasies.
There’s the old-fashioned approach to garden plotting — pencil, paper and a ruler. You can sketch out flow of your garden before breaking ground, making sure you leave space for walkways and bushing or trailing plants.
If this gets messy — which it quickly can — try a digital method. Apps like Iscape and Garden Plan Pro can handle all the sketching for you and leave you with clean layout plans. The GardenMinder app by Gardener’s Supply Co. works well for raised-bed gardens and helps you plan accordingly.
Laying out your garden allows your imagination to be free and light — embrace this step. Mix and match produce and blooms, and if you’re into lawn art, add the decorative gnome. You know you want to.
4. Mission: maintain and defend
You’ve come so far, plant parent. After all the work of figuring out the best conditions for your garden and planting seeds or baby plants, now comes the upkeep, or what I like to consider maintaining and defending.
A well-weeded garden is the sign of an avid gardener, but sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s a weed and what isn’t (especially when seeds first begin to sprout). ID Weeds is a University of Missouri Extension project that helps you identify before you accidentally pluck the wrong thing.
There will be pests. Ones you have never seen before, and some that you’ll never see in the daytime. But, before you break out the hose to spray them off or give up on protecting your plants, learn about what’s found your foliage. Bugs in the Garden not only shows photos of each bug, but also lists affected plants and describes any damage. The Audubon Society has several outstanding apps for identifying insects and butterflies, along with mushrooms, trees and birds.
If you discover wilting leaves and strange residue on plants, snap a picture and analyze it with the Garden Compass Plant and Disease Identified app. It takes the difficulty out of trying to look up hard to describe symptoms.
And if you find that remembering to water, weed or spray for pests is hard to keep on your schedule, think about downloading a garden manager app. Garden Manager: Plant Alarm is one of many you can find in the iTunes or Google Play store that remind you to weed, water, or transplant new seedlings.
5. Seek out support when something goes wrong
Something will inevitably go wrong in your garden. Avoiding this idea is futile. If it’s not a jungle of grass that you can’t control, it’ll be tiny insects that ravage plant leaves, or neighborhood cats looking for a new litter box. Woe is the gardening life.
Sites like Garden Compass provide one-on-one virtual assistance from pro-gardeners near your area that can help identify problematic pests or plant diseases. But, if you’re looking for multiple viewpoints on how to handle a garden obstacle, consider reaching out to other gardeners. Forums like Garden Web and Helpful Gardener are free, digital meeting places for gardeners of all skill levels, who can supply advice from their own experiences. Even Reddit has gardening communities with different subtopics, such as indoor, organic, urban, vegetable or for small, square-foot gardens.
Facebook is another wonderful venue to meet fellow gardeners. Groups like The Heirloom Legacy focus on providing advice and swapping seeds and bulbs, while the Garden Naturally Group pulls together planters with interests in chemical-free growing.
6. Don’t be afraid to stay the old-school route
There are countless apps, websites and networks you can turn to, but don’t forget about the grand library of print gardening resources. Even with online garden managers, I still reach for the same gardening references that my mom used and taught me from. Among my favorites are The Victory Garden, Crockett’s Flower Garden, and a 1976 edition of Organic Plant Protection.
After moving to a new region last planting season, with new pests I had never encountered, I took a trip to my local university extension office. Helpful agricultural specialists were able to explain that squash borer worms had burrowed into all my zucchini, squash and cucumbers, and that there was no solution. Extension offices and master gardener’s groups are a great, often free, resource that provides classes and programs. Through those programs, I was able to learn how to prepare those plants for success this year.
With or without digital help, getting out into the soil and exploring nature is a great stress reliever and classic summertime hobby. With a little bit of preparation, a wealth of knowledge at your fingertips and determination, you can be lounging around beautiful flowers or eating fresh salads from your backyard all summer long.
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Nicole L. Garner is a freelance copy editor and writer who focuses on diversity in media. She spends her time away from the computer barefoot in her rural Missouri garden or knitting sweaters for her jumbo-sized cats. You can follow her on Twitter @nlgarner.
