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App Review – Gardenate

I’m a pretty keen amateur gardener & was using the good old fashion pen & paper when it came to recording the progress of my garden or what I’ve planted where. I’ve been following the website Gardenate to have a bit of an idea on what to plant when. I have been waiting for the app to finally come to Android, and forgot all about it till recently. I’ve been building up quite a bit of credit on the Google Play Store by doing the surveys & decided that I needed to spend it soon before they expire. I might do another post at a later date explaining about the surveys for people who might be interested as I found it quite a nifty way to make some money on Google to purchase stuff. Good win-win advertising on Google’s behalf.

Anyway, I digress. I started using the Gardenate app in February or March & have found it pretty good so far.

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This is the landing page you get to when you open the app. There are a few tabs on the top & they are rather self explanatory. I like the simplistic design of it all, making it rather easy to navigate around. I haven’t used the wish list yet, just cause I’ve been pretty well stocked in terms of seeds at the moment, maybe in about a year or so when my supply dwindles, I’ll try it out.

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The Planting Now tab features the types of plants that can be planted according to what month it is. I take this tab with a grain of salt as I also go according to the specific seed packet as well as the present weather conditions.

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This tab features the things I’ve planted & the locations. Kind of like a digital map of my veggies. And good news is that the app is available on iOS as well as Android OS.

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There’s also the All Plants & Diary tabs which are pretty helpful in identifying any plants that you might consider planting & it gives details of suitable planting conditions & tips.

All in all, I quite like the app as I can always refer back to what I’ve planted when & replant stuff if they aren’t successful. They even feature a plant again button so that you can press it & it’ll document that you’ve planted something on that day.

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I find it very handy to know when I can roughly expect my veggies to be harvested. The app is able to link to your calender to insert a reminder when things can be harvested. Good to know as I’ve planted some things for the first time & have no idea how long it takes.

All in all, I really like this app in all its simplicity & for all the information provided in it. I bought the app for $2.58 I think, from memory & it’s one of the better ones I’ve spent my money on. Do you use any gardening apps? Let me know in the comments below!

Garden Updates April 2015

The cold has just started to set in properly, the mercury dipped down to a chilly 11 degrees last night! The days are getting shorter & it is certainly getting harder to crawl out of bed in the dark each morning & drag myself to work.

I’ve planted my winter veggies in their mini greenhouse – kale, Brussel sprouts, purple broccoli & green broccoli. They look like they’re taking a while to make an appearance & are slowly growing in the shade.

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My Mila radishes are almost ready to eat, my basil has almost stopped producing & my butter beans & snake beans are giving out the last of their wares. The peas that I’ve put in last month are making a steady appearance with the cold. I’ve created a decent amount of pesto from my basil, given that I was late in planting them out this season. I must say, I’m pretty proud of the pesto. It’s the first time I’ve made it from home grown basil.

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I’ve also put in a fresh crop of silverbeet & rainbow chard as my current plants have been going for a good 5 months or so. I figured it was time to remove the old, revitalise the soil & put in some more. They were one of my better producing crops, with very little maintenance required apart from keeping the bugs away!

Being verge collection in the neighbouring council, we managed to get some nice big pots & I have made a start on more planting with them. I’ve put in the long white icicle radish & have plans for a few more items like leeks & onions just to make use of the portable space afforded with the pots.

I’ve got many other things growing in the garden too at the moment – chillis (Devil’s Brew, jalepenos & 2 other unknown types), capsicum, sweet potato, carrots, broad beans & chives to name a few. It’s going to be a pretty good growing season ahead!

What have you got in your garden this month?

Garden Updates March 2015

The weather has just started to turn to the colder weather of autumn with the much cooler nights. Tropical Cyclone Olwyn is in the State’s North at the moment & we will be feeling the effects of that in the Perth metro area tomorrow or so, with a deluge of rain. I don’t mind rain so much if I’m indoors & don’t have to be anywhere urgently. It’s when I have to be somewhere & it is storming when I really don’t like it all. I remember the one time where it was in the middle of winter & I was drenched from feet to knees from trying to get from my car to a site that I was visiting & I didn’t have spare pants in the car. That was an experience in itself.

The cooler temperatures of autumn has brought about a bit of a change with my veggie garden; the tomato plants have stopped flowering, the brown grass patch is now slowly turning green again and all my plants aren’t getting scorched from the summer heat!

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My snake beans have been growing rather well, with the longest of them measuring a whooping 30cm! I’m pretty excited to see these as they were pretty easy to plant & look after. All they required were some supports so that they could creep & some general fertiliser in the pot I put them in. Considering the space they take up, they produce pretty good yields & I would recommend them for the amateur gardener any day.

In the past week, I’ve put in some purple sprouting broccoli, brussels sprouts, peas & some radishes. It will be May before I even can look at harvesting any of them, but I guess it will be worth the wait if they all germinate in the moderate weather.

What are you planting in your garden for winter? Let me know in the comments below.