Plangarden vegetable site get facelift and blog
By roystahl | August 1, 2008
The vegetable gardening site update has been up for a few weeks now and all looks good. The new style seems to have worked out fine and the blog that was put up a month ago, but was hidden is now out in full view.
Once I get back from vacation I will be doing some final polishing to the site, then finish up the long overdue version 2.0 of the applicaiton.
On the garden front I am in full harvest and replanting as the season has been great this year. The Brandywine tomatoes are a success, and since they have to grow in a coldframe that is a big deal for me. It means that I can grow real tomatoes and get real results.
Strawberries have been late this year, but have come on strong.
Corn is there, but it is still to early to know if it is going to succeed or not. It is always an iffy vegetable to grow in the fog.
The garden is done and ready for a week with only one scheduled water. It should be fine.
Topics: Vegetable Software News | No Comments »
Meeting Bay Area Rock Star of Vegetable Gardening Pam Peirce
By roystahl | July 4, 2008
I have read many gardening books, but the one that I became the most fond of was Golden Gate Gardening by Pam Peirce. Pam took the time to write a vegetable gardening book that was customized for vegetable gardeners in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Having moved around and been involved in gardening since I was a child, I knew that when I got to Half Moon Bay that I was going to be challenged in vegetable gardening. All the lessons that I had learned in the midwest and Arizona and Southern California where not going to work in the Bay Area. After a few miserable failures, I searched for books and was lucky enough to find Pam Peirce’s book.
I read to book in bed, I took it out with me to the garden. I would use it to answer my wife’s questions. My respect for Pam had grown to the point where see was a Rock Star of Gardening in my eyes.
Last weekend the local edible gardening club had invited her to speak at a meeting. I jumped at the opportunity and took my worn, dirt covered book in tow and sat listening to her wonderful talk. Afterwards I took my book up and had her sign it. Also because I know how authors get paid by publishers, I purchased her second book and had her sign that too.
I was also glad to see that I was not the only one that appreciated Pam’s work as nearly 50 people showed up and most lined up to get her signature as well.
It was also nice to sit down and talk with Pam about some of the oddities of this years growing season and share gardening stories. She matched the person that I had envisioned in my mind and was very pleasant to talk with. Vegetable gardening is clearly her passion and her years of experience it self evident.
If you vegetable garden in the Bay Area, you need to read her book. If you want to know what she is up or her views on the current climate and vegetable plantings, you can follow her blog at Golden Gate Gardener or if you are more old fashion you can follow her columns in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Topics: Vegetable Software News | No Comments »
Vegetable Gardening programing rest
By roystahl | June 23, 2008
Finally I am reaching the end of a long programming marathon. Since September I have been working on a large volume of changes to the vegetable gardening website for Plangarden. It has taken much longer than I expected to get everything put together. Up until now the changes have been hidden, on test sites or available to select gardeners. Over the next several weeks there will be a ton up updates and changes made to the site. It is very exciting to start to plant these changes on the site. Of course that mean lot of extra backups are being made, but that is a good thing. When all this is done I will take some time just to Veg out. Growing Vegetable has been great this season and already lots of things have been harvested, but then I digress.
Topics: Vegetable Software News | No Comments »
AS3 Datechooser gets action
By roystahl | June 5, 2008
It was a while back when I posted my intention to give away for free a datechooser that I wrote for actionscript 3. As a matter of fact, I had thought that it wasn’t wanted or needed by anyone so I forgot about it. In reality, I think it just took time to get ranked and now that people know I have it I am started to get requests for it.
For now I have decided not to bundle it as a component and sell it. I am just giving it to people that can agree so some simple terms: No use in a vegetable garden application, not to redistribute and sell and not to want support for a free item. That said it is a fairly loose agreement and not a deal breaker for anyone so far.
The code is delivered ‘as is’ but has been tested pretty extensively as I use it in my gardening application myself. I have bundled it and can deliver it with a sample project that shows it working. It relies on being in as files and not in the timeline.
Over time I hope to gather up others usage of it and post them here.
Here is a sample
Topics: ActionScript 3, DateChooser | No Comments »
Plangarden 2.09 gets planted
By roystahl | May 28, 2008
Just released version 2.09 of Plangarden. We now have most of the old features of the vegetable plot layout software included in this release, plus all the new cool improvements that have been made along the way. Growing software from seed again has been harder then I would have liked it to be, but in the end I have a stronger plant to hang new fruit/features on.
There is just one last thing saving and loading of multiple plots to complete and it will be ready to move to beta testing.
Topics: Vegetable Software News | No Comments »
