What's that saying ~ "Be careful what you ask for." Well, you asked for it, Trant. ;) Hope you're not sorry you asked when you're done reading what will likely be an extremely looooong post. ;) Basing it as a blog would be great, with links to separate sections (databases) for what's being grown (veggies, flowers, fruit trees, etc.), suppliers/sources (seed companies, local nurseries, etc.), each garden or section of the yard ("Potager", "Veggie Garden", "Front Flowerbed"), etc. Linkability ~ It'd be nice if every time I typed something in the blog that there was an entry for ("Rattlesnake Beans", "Natural Gardener", "Pinetree Seeds", "Potager Garden", etc.), it would automatically link it to the page for that item. For me, searchability system-wide (in titles, entries, everything) would be important. That way, in December when I'm trying to figure out which tomatoes (for instance) to order, it would be easy to do a system-wide search for any mention of "tomatoes" or "tomato" so I could refresh my memory on what kinds I've planted in all years past and read notes on how they did. It'd be nice to have the option of narrowing the search to just titles, just notes, etc. And would be great to be able to search phrases as well, a la Google ~ "seed starting" or "setting out". Easy access to information multiple ways ~ it'd be nice if clicking on a month or day in a list (in calendar form maybe?) would bring up whatever I wrote on that day, AND when I clicked on an entry for the aforementioned Rattlesnake Beans and went to that page, it'd be nice to have a list at the bottom (with clickable dates/synopses) of every date/entry where I talked about it in the "blog". About the separate sections for each "thing" (supplier, variety, etc.)... ~~ Supplier/source section: A separate page for each where I could type in address, what I received from them, when, who I talked to, etc. ~ even any notes I wanted to add. A nice feature would be, during entering of a new entry, being able to choose from a list of suppliers I'd already entered and it would give a link to the supplier's page from the veggie's entry. Being able to designate the specific type of source would be nice, too (mail order seed house, local nursery or store, internet trade, gift from friend, personally saved seed, any others you can think of). ~~ Plant section: An auto-fill feature here would be great. When I go to add a new entry, it would be nice for the "flow" of it to go like this: Choose "new entry" ~ next window allows me to choose between vegetable, flower, fruit tree, etc. (I choose "vegetable") ~ next window gives a list of all veggies (I choose "Bean, Pole, Dry") ~ next window is a list of all "Bean, Pole, Dry"s I've already added, if any, along with "Add new". If I choose "Add new", it'll auto-fill the basic cultural info specific to pole beans grown for drying, but leave all other things blank. If I choose "Rattlesnake Beans", it'll auto-fill everything I've already input on that entry, including past years' notes ~ or maybe it'd be better if it'd just take me to the "update entry" page for that item where I could note that I'm growing it again in 2009. ~~ Garden/Yard Area section: Separate pages for each garden or section of yard. If there would be any way possible to draw a garden map in this, that would be perfect, but I imagine the coding for this would be awfully labor-intensive, huh? At the very least, a specific place to upload an image of a garden map would be good, with a link to that featured prominently on the page. It'd also be nice to closely tie previous entries to new entries. On those Rattlesnake Beans, it'd be nice to be able to go to that entry and see all previous years' info/notes on the same page, atleast via a list of clickable links. If I click on the Rattlesnake entry, I'd love to see a page with variety name at the top, cultural info below that, and then the notes from all years below that, maybe with a couple inches of each note showing and "Read more" link at end of each, or a list of dates when I talked about them in the blog and/or added notes somewhere, or simply each year listed as links to a page that shows the list for whichever year clicked. It'd also be nice if the most recent was always at the top. Probably the best thing you could do in designing garden software would be to make everything changeable since we're all so different in our likes and dislikes. For instance, when wanting to read the "blog" or look back on previous years, it'd be nice to have the option of choosing from a menu that looks like a calendar, or one that is in list form (all text). Other options that'd probably be nice would be an on/off for the auto-fill (maybe even the ability to turn it off on different sections ~ for instance, off on source/supplier section, but leave on in the plant section), being able to "hide" cultural info on each plant entry page so it just shows variety name and list of notes, the ability to see brief synopses of each note/blog entry on each variety page OR just see a list of dates where it was mentioned, the aforementioned search narrowing, and even the ability to move things around on the entry pages (for instance, I may like having "Bean, Pole, Dry" at the top of the Rattlesnake bean entry, where someone else would prefer "Rattlesnake Bean" to be at the top), and I'm sure I'll think of other things. Something else nice would be the ability to customize page background colors, text colors, font, text size, and even to insert some background images. The ability to automatically publish each "blog" entry to the internet would be wonderful. Of course the user would have to set up a blog first on our own, but if your software could work with it, that would be grand. Can it weed my garden for me, too? *snicker* And images! MUST have the ability to add multiple images. For me, pictures of my garden are so important ~ sometimes they're the only type of record-keeping I can do. Being able to add them to each variety's page as well as insert them into the "blog" (and publish them when the blog entry is published) would be so incredibly handy. If you're serious about designing garden software, email me. I can explain this in pictures a lot better ~ I could draw it out in Paint )or on paper and scan it) as flowcharts (I think that's the right word ~ kind of like family trees are drawn out) and give examples of what each page looks like in my head, and email it to you. If you're serious, I'd love to help you with this as I'm desperate for some sort of garden journal software that's truly user friendly and genuinely easy to use (keeping a garden journal, for me, is almost a chore, so anything that's so easy a child could do it would greatly increase my chances of actually using it). All of the ones I've ever seen just aren't user friendly, no matter what they say.

I don't think there is a 'best' result from the use of only hand work or only computer work. I have worked through both, and find that a merger of the two methods serves both my time schedule and the product. I prefer hand rendering, with a combination of AD markers, water color, and chalk pastel. But I like the precision of hard geometry to show as precision lines with reference to soft, hand-drawn elements that speak of living things. For that to show clearly, I like to use AutoCad for drafting lines, print that on mylar (nice for graphite, and fun to blend on), then print the final on vellum for rendering. The markers blend nicely on the vellum, and don't bleed. Vellum also allows for backcolor that comes through softly as a background to rendered elements. All that is to say that hand drawing-rendering and computer drafting really work together if I treat them as a hybrid single method, not distinguishing one from the other but blending the two. Because the color is hand rendered, I tend to think about the subtle properties of my plant choices while rendering them--visualizing the plant, its flowering characteristics and true mature size, its shadow at the time of day I am intending to represent, and its resolution with respect to the far background. These things are properties I can focus on because hand rendering does take longer and gives more time to reflect on the choices and their interaction with each other. I even find myself mentally wandering through the space I'm creating while finishing the drawings of them.

You may notice along the bottom of the screen there is a tab labeled "Succession Planting". This is a quick view: You can see each of the crop to the left, and to the right is a bar representing the growing life of that variety. Labels such as DS for "Direct Seed", T for "Transplant", F for "Foliar Feeding", SD for "Side Dress" etc., make it easy to keep track of the schedule for each variety. Further, all of these labels are hyperlinked to my Microsoft OneNote notebook, where each crop has a separate page to track observations, notations, harvesting statistics, information gleened from the web, pages scanned from my favourite gardening books and magazines, etc. For instance, if you click on the "SD" for my Kestrel Beets, it will take you directly to the OneNote page like this: You will notice at the right hand side are tabs for all of the varieties that I grow so that I can enter information about specific crops such as planting date, germination rates, harvest dates and quantities, etc. I can also attach photos, link to my blog posts, etc. Further, each tab has links to favourite recipes (captured from online sources mostly) and notations about taste, quality, etc. Then, to tie it all together, I enter all of that information into a Microsoft Project project, and assign myself as a resource. Each of these items is given a task with a date assigned according to the chart above. Then, I will receive via email a weekly "to-do" list. What I am trying to show is that the information is out there and it can be organized. My setup has been the result of hundreds of hours of research, organizing and cross referencing. This is necessary for me because I have a young family, a very large garden, and I run a family-friends CSA. I need to know when to plant something so that it arrives at a specific time, and I need something to tell me when to do it because when the season arrives, I don't have time to figure it out. Even if I could find software to do this for me, I don't know if I would want it. The research and compilation of this system has allowed me to learn more than I ever could by just punching in some numbers and letting the computer do the work. If they say the best way to garden is to get your hands dirty, the best way to plan your garden is to get your virtual hands dirty.

A couple of other tips you could pass on to those new to canning or those not current with the guidelines may find helpful: 1 - by far the most popular method of canning tomatoes is called Crushed Tomatoes with no added liquid for the best over-all quality and unlimited utility. The instructions are also in all the Ball Canning books. 2 - rather than using the old "dip in boiling water to peel" method many have shifted to the recommended "freeze whole for min. of 48 hours" method. Just fill a big bag with whole tomatoes and set it in the freezer. When thawed the skins sip right off easily. Some core the fruit first, some don't. Much less time consuming, easier peeling, and less heat in the kitchen. I would disagree with euarto that big beefsteaks are mostly juice but I suppose that would depend on how one raised them. And of course if you just drain any tomatoes before jarring you eliminate most of the juice and cut any cooking time by half. Again you'll find much more about all this over on Harvest if interested. Heirlooms: (#1)Cherokee Purple, (#2)Brandywine, Mr Stripey (blah), Yellow Pear, (yucko) (#3)Hillbilly Hybrids: (2) Big Boy, (1)Better Boy, Celebrity, Patio(cherry types), Grape, (6)Husky Cherry Red, (4)Early Girl, (5)Sweet Million and (3)Lemon Boy. I'd skip the rest. Dave