Even though the idea of your smartphone being around so much dirt and soil may make you feel slightly uneasy, there are many apps that may help you while you garden. Some can help with keeping track of the plants you’ve planted in the garden, others can give you suggestions of what to plant, and some can even help you with growing your very own vegetable patch. Here at best4garden, we wanted to give you a rundown of some gardening apps that may be useful to you.
MySoil is an app made by the British geological survey. The makers of the app are always looking for more people to upload data, so their app can add more soil information. This app identifies the type of soils in areas around Europe. This would be particularly useful if you wanted to relocate some of your plants in your garden, or even if you’re moving to a new home and want to take your favourite plants, and want to make sure they’re happy in their new position. This clever app also tells you the pH of the soil, too, to help find out if the soil is acidic in certain areas. This app is unfortunately only available on Apple technology at the moment, however there is another app on android that is similar, called “SoilInfo.”
Another useful app is Garden time planner. This app shows you the best places in your garden to to plant fruit and vegetables, and gives you tips right up to the harvest of your own plants. This app also gives you suggestions on what to grow in your garden based on what you already have, and has a massive database of plants. Unfortunately, there is a downside with this app- When giving you plant suggestions, the app’s developer, Burpee, tries to sell you their own products, and sometimes the pop-ups can be hard to navigate away from. This app is available on both the apple store and on android.
An app that is similar to Garden time planner is an app called Homegrown. This app acts as a garden-based mobile diary, where you can note down when you planted each of your plants, add photos and note down when you need to feed them, and even make a note of pests you have seen around your plants in order to get advice. This app also gives you planting suggestions like Garden time planner. This is a great app for a beginner gardener (or a forgetful one)! So you can keep up to date with the plants in your garden. This app is only currently available to purchase within the Apple store.
A similar app to Homegrown is Grow you own, an app that is also targeted towards people who are beginners to gardening. In this app you add everything you have in your garden to their database, and the app will tell you what you should be doing with your plants at different types of the year, whether germinating or harvesting. You can also get information on diseases, pests and weeds to ensure your garden stays healthy all year round. This app is available on the Apple store, but is not yet on android.
Now, we all have unwanted plants in our garden from time to time, but imagine if there was an app to help you identify the problem and get rid of them. Well, ID weeds is an app that does just that. With this app you can identify weeds by name, a description, or if you’re a particularly seasoned gardener, it’s latin name. The app then tells you what you need to do to get rid of these plants, for good.
Finally, Landscaper’s companion is an app for people who want to know everything they can to help their plants grow. You can search through over 25.000 plants and receive information such as the plant’s desired sun exposure, growth rate, mature height, bloom times and water usage. You can also keep notes on your plants, like in the app Homegrown mentioned earlier, or even upload photos. This is a great app for people who want to know more about their plants to make sure they get enough of what they need in order to thrive.
Hopefully these apps will be beneficial to you and your garden, just make sure you keep your smartphone safe while gardening!