Smart Gardener – The Secret to a Successful Crop

What’s the secret to growing a garden that’s full of healthy fruits and vegetables? For many, it’s an app called Smart Gardener. At-home gardeners who use Smart Gardener can get access to special tools, garden plans, and advice that’s customized based on a number of unique factors. By taking into account a garden’s geo-location and the gardener’s family size, and by utilizing a complex weather mapping algorithm and a database of more than 500 plants, Smart Gardener can help anyone get a green thumb.

The first step when looking to get advice from Smart Gardener is to set up a virtual garden. Create a garden layout that reflects the size and shape of your beds by dragging and dropping various shapes into place. Next, choose the plants you’re planning to grow. Not only does Smart Gardener keep track of what you’re growing, but it also offers recommendations on what you may want to start planting next. Based on the information you put in, Smart Gardener will come up with a customized plan. Included in this plan are weekly to-do items, which are sent directly to your email inbox. Smart Gardener will guide you through the steps of preparing the ground, planting your crops, caring for your seedlings, and harvesting your fruits and vegetables at the end of the season.

Smart Gardener offers a number of community-building tools that help gardeners connect and learn from each other, too. Users can share their gardens with others, and even keep journals full of notes about how their crops are coming along. Smart Gardener is a fun resource for avid gardeners and novices who are just beginning to learn the ropes.

Practical Uses:

• Find out what types of crops will grow best in your climate
• Get advice on how to set up a backyard garden
• Keep track of when you planted various seedlings and when the first sprouts started to appear
• Talk to people from around the country who share your passion for gardening

Insider Tips:

• Smart Gardener has a database of more than 500 plants
• Users can find out where to purchase the seeds that are being recommended for their gardens
• Smart Gardener’s advice is based on a user’s geo-location and household size
• Tracking journals display entries from other users who are growing the same plants

What we liked:

• Smart Gardener’s garden plans takes the mystery out of growing a successful crop
• Garden bed layouts can be adjusted very easily with drag and drop technology
• Users can get shopping lists with everything they need they need to pick up at the nursery
• A gallery of garden templates is available for people who aren’t sure where to start

What we didn’t like:

• Since Smart Gardener is relatively new, the community aspect of the site isn’t as robust as it could be

Alternatives:

• folia – http://myfolia.com
• Grow the planet – http://www.growtheplanet.com

Company Info:

• Launched: May 2011
• Privately Held
• Headquarters: Healdsburg, California
• Founded by: Kristee Rosendahl
• Web site: http://www.smartgardener.com

Costs:

• Free