Post all comments about the plangarden beta here. Check here for development notes.

If you are are registered users of the forum, then you already are most of the way there. The forum uses the same username and password as the applications. If not, quickly register, it is free.

Next goto the plangarden application either be clicking on the "Run PlanGarden Applications at the top of the forum home or go back to the home and click on "Use plangarden Applications" from there you are on your own for now. If you need help post it back on this forum and I will answer any questions here. That way others can learn about this program before a manual is created.

Please note that this is under development and may be unstable at times.

Thanks,
Roy Stahl

Just some things that would make the application better for me personally, but hopefully would also be of interest to others.

'Generic' marker for each vegetable type, to be used if my variety is not listed. Helpful for those of us growing heirloom veggies.

I know you are concentrating on veggies, but I also grow herbs to flavor my veggies, and would like to add these to my virtual garden plan. Again, a generic 'herb' marker would be fine.

Maybe allow the use of custom markers rather than generic ones. Anyway, cool site, nice idea. Keep it up.

Laurie

Good news you can do much of this already. The pull-down menu that you use to select your vegetable is also a text entry box. (Different than most pull-downs you are used to.) You can simply type in the name of whatever vegetable you want, as long as it matches the graphic fairly close. Which brings me to the next point, the full version of this software will have many more graphics to choose from.

In the future I hope to partner with seed companies and have downloadedable vegetable groups for vegetable groups like tomatoes and garlic. There is NO way that I ever will have every vegetable or name variation that people want to plant, so that is why I have given you the ability to call it a potato or a potatoe.

The other nice thing about naming your own vegetables is that you may plant Spanish Roja garlic in three different places and want to track them seperately. You call one "Spanish Roja, main garden", Spanish Roja - Planter" and or "Spanish Roja #3".

Also once you add a name it is included in your pull-down for that vegetable type.

Roy

Roy,
Just want to say thank you and I really like this site. I have only had one garden, last year and it didn't go too well at that. I was wondering if this site will be available after you sell the software or if you will shut it down once you fix the bugs. Thank you again and it's really an impressive site.

Morganna

Good question about the future of this site.

My goal is to NEVER shut down the site. The site is the application, the application is the site. While I could recompile this to be a stand-alone Flash application, that is not my intent. Plangarden relies on the Browser, Macromedia Flash with actionscript, Javascript, Mysql, XML, PHP and AJAX. I probably forgot some technologies I am using, but the point is that plangarden won't work without the web site.

At some point I plan to charge a nominal fee to users as an annual subscription. I may look at other ways such as OEM versions or advertising on the site to make it worth the effort.

Reasons the site may go away:
1. A big company (e.g. a seed company) offers to buy the technology and integrate it into their own site and requires this site to be removed as part of the terms. At this point in time, I do not see that happening.
2. If it gets too cost intensive to maintain and operate, there is a chance I may shut it down.

I developed this application because I couldn't find software that does what plangarden can do. I created plangarden to fufill my own requirements, so I personally want this site to work. (This last sentence is the short answer)

Uhh, How do I get the beta test software to use and test?

One problem that Kevin realized is that there is no download page and you end up in the Forum after registering. A problem that I am aware of and need to create a custom registration page.

For now just know that there is nothing to download. Just click on the "Use Plangarden Application" at the top of this screen or click on the ladybug with the Start on it that now shows up on every website page in the top right corner.

Sorry about the confussion. I will work to make it more clear what you need to do to run the program.

Thanks for letting me know. I am guessing that lots of people have had this problem, but just gave up rather than letting me know.

Thanks,
Roy

Roy this is a great site/program/application whatever you want to call it! Don't ever throw in the towel or sell it to some other entity that might screw it up. I would be willing to pay a small subscription fee to keep it going! Keep up the good work!

I noticed that my account has an expiration on it. How to I keep it from expiring?

I love this site. I have rented a garden plot from the city and worried about the planning of the garden. I'm a bit anal and need to plan it out before hand. I first attempted to do this with graph paper and got quickly frustrated. Then I found this site.

My question is my account shows an expiration date in June. Does that mean I'll be booted out and lose my garden plan.

Thanks again for this site. I too would be very willing to pay a small subscription fee to keep this site available.

Stacey