Therefore, this review is not a comparison, because each of these programs takes a different approach, just as real-dirt gardeners do. Comparing any two of these programs would be like comparing a Volkswagen to an ice-cream maker in perspective, both are machines, both use motive power to achieve a desired end, and both need a lot of cranking, but they have dissimilar purposes. Sunset Western Garden recommends 8MB, as does BTW’s Garden Encyclopedia, but Mindsun’s Gardenview can use as little as 640Kb RAM (although 2MB gives you more flexibility.) It is my understanding that CD-ROMs will work on both PCs and Macintoshes, through some incomprehensible magic.īear in mind, there’s a lot of variety in garden software. Most of the software reviewed here requires a 386 or better, and much of it runs best on 4MB RAM. My machine is an IBM clone, 486-33 with a dual-speed CD, 8MB RAM, and no math coprocessor. (“Spoken like a true non-gardener,” Joy intones.) In addition, the software encyclopedias make it easy to learn all about vegetables, flowers, shrubs, trees, and vines, without ever seeing any in real life. With garden planning software, it can be all fun (and no work). Besides, planning a garden is half the fun.” It’s all a function of the rational mind. “Oh, a million reasons: for companion planting, for disease and pest control, for comparing results from year to year, to make sure the tall stuff like corn is at the north end so it won’t shade the sun lovers, and so we can calculate our primary and secondary harvest schedules. And answer me this: What’s the real point to planning a garden, complete with charts and a garden notebook? The whole thing is a chore, and I treasure my ignorance. I wear boots, socks, gloves, and a hat, and try to garden from a safe distance, often with motorized tools. “What do you mean? I wear Birkies,” my co-gardener says. ![]() Joy revels in the physical contact, whereas Hell for me would be working barefoot in a garden. There are two kinds of relationships with the soil: those who like to get dirty and those who don’t. Joy actually likes DOS, probably for the same reason she’s proud of blisters from working in the garden. Technology is all right, but no substitute for reality. I don’t call you a computer nerd because you’ve got Windows and I use DOS.” “I have my own computer, don’t I? I’m helping you review these programs, aren’t I? So be nice. “I am not,” Joy says, reading this over my shoulder. It’s called a PC for good reason.Īt first, Joy was not eager to use this keen software. Here we have eight versions of garden and landscape planning software and plant encyclopedias, in cute CD-ROM or cuddly disk format, with plenty of rich, loamy documentation: the stuff of a gardener’s dreams, the delight of garden planners who might wish to impose some order on Nature’s bounty in a holistic and earth-friendly manner with a computer simulation. Given my fast draw on the computer, I’m sheriff of this one. Why plan, I thought, when you can just dig dirt and plant seeds? But it made sense to her, so Joy was definitely the sheriff of that territory. Garden planning is the most critical aspect of planning a garden, I gathered, but I didn’t really see what is was about. Frankly the explanation made me drowsier than five minutes in a wallpaper store. Then she tried to explain the master plan to me, so I’d know where and how to dig. She frequently consulted her vast library of books on plants, manually copying notes into her own garden notebook. A virtual garden.īack in the old days of last year, Joy took a pencil in her hand and made a diagram of our garden-to-be: potatoes here, rutabagas there, marigolds and turnips hither, and onions yon. Fortunately, we live in an age when you can have a beautiful garden growing on your computer screen, tending immaculate pixels made of light. You know how it feels when your hands are all coated with dry gritty earth, and when you rub them together it feels like you’re wearing gloves? And then you’ve got black hemispheres under your fingernails. ( See the illustrations in the image gallery.) Reviews of the Best Garden Design SoftwareĪs I see it, the only thing wrong with gardens is the dirt. ![]() Reviews of the best garden design software to plan out your garden. Homemade Cheese Recipes: Cheese Making Articles.Sustainable Farming & Agriculture Articles.Power Equipment Articles - Lawn and Garden Equipment.Raising Ducks and Geese: Articles & Ideas.Homesteading Poultry - Chicken, Turkey, Ducks Archives.
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