Grow Veg Garden Planner Review

I know there are several reviews out there for this software, but since I used and loved this tool last year, I thought I would through my review out there as well. Whether you have used this software or not, please make sure to view the video I embedded for you, of the new features this year. These features make a great program even better, I am excited to get going using it just based on a few of these new tools.

I have to say, I am not typically a fan of these types of tools, not only am I not an organized person (and most days I prefer it that way) but organizational tools normally sit and collect dust in my house. I also was not sure how I felt about computerizing something that most years I do in my head.

Last year however we had a larger garden for the first time in years. I wanted to get the most out of my garden that I could. So I went looking for a tool that would let me maximize my garden harvest with the space I had.

Well since I will be using and recommending Grow Veg this year I can honestly say that it was a serious success.

First Impressions

Grow veg has a lot of things going for it, but what I had to decide is whether or not it was truly worth paying $25 a year for. Keep in mind that Grow Veg does offer a free trial for 30 days to try the software out. So I was able to plan my garden and print out a copy of it and my plant dates for free. But was it worth continuing to pay for?

Ease of Use – Right out of the box Grow Veg is so simple and intuitive anyone can use it. I did not spend any time trying to figure it out, because they made it so easy to use, I could dig in and start planning my garden right away. This is no easy feat when you consider how flexible this program is.

Flexibility – Speaking of flexibility, imagine designing your garden, is it perfectly square or does it have to fit in a space provided for it? Grow Veg makes it easy for you to draw out simple plots, oddly sized plots, several plots or your ENTIRE landscape.

Tools Galore- I think these tools were what finally made me decide that Grow Veg was worth the extra cost. When it was time to replant I got an email telling me it was time. For the hopelessly unorganized such as myself, this all by itself was worth the annual fee I paid. Some people might find that annoying, but for me, who never manages to remember to replant at the right time, it was priceless.

Year to year, the Grow Veg vegetable planting guide helps with rotating crops. I am no spring chicken anymore, and even when I was younger I had a hard time remember how, when, and where to rotate. Grow veg had all of that information ready for me when it was time to replant. No fuss, no worries, it made it so easy to plan this year’s garden.

In addition you are able to lay out things like pathways, irrigation, fencing, arbors, and more. This is new this year, it even provides a shopping list for your irrigation system to make this task incredibly easy. This allows you to plan your garden from the ground up. When you are done, you also get a plant list that tells you exactly what you have planted and any other notes or information you might want to record. If you want to keep a gardening notebook this could be nothing short of priceless. You can even record the varieties you planted and later go back and make notes about how well they did.

Other Features You Won’t Know How You did Without

The list of things I loved about using Growveg is long, I won’t bore you with all of them, with a free trial it is easy enough for you to find out for yourself. But I wanted to share those little gems that will keep me coming back time and time again.

• The ability to tuck in one, two or twenty plants wherever you want. (I love relaxed gardens that are not all straight rows. But you can do those too!)
• Garden Veg automatically determines spacing, so NO CHEATING. Seriously I am terrible about being over ambitious and crowding plants too close together.
• Grow veg does have a square foot garden design planner, so if you are short on space you can fit in more in less space
• This program adapts to my location so a vegetable planting calendar told me exactly when to plant everything, no more guess work (although I did cheat a bit on this, it was an extra warm year last year)
• I thought for sure that this program would not have all of my plants, but guess what? It did! But if it does not, no worries, there is a way to create your own plants custom.
• Everything is as simple as drag and drop, it is fun, easy, and creative to build a garden this way!
• Straight Rows are optional! Seriously! Ever wanted a garden that was a work of art and as fun to plant as it is to harvest? Ditch the straight rows and have fun designing a garden!
• Need information about the plants I grew? There is an extensive data base of information that tells everything you need to know about how to grow vegetables, fruits and herbs.

Is Grow Veg Something I will continue to use?

It is easy to say that $25 is a lot of money to add to the cost of growing your vegetables, and it is true that that is the case. I try to grow as much as I can, for as little as I can, to save us money. I am also a bit of a tightwad.

But here is the bottom line, if I can increase my yields but getting in second plants, increase the health of my plants by planting them properly and by getting information about rotation then this program is worth every dime I spend on it. For me it was a no brainer, anytime I can spend money to save money I will do it.

At for those of you who think that you don’t need this program because you have been gardening for ____ years (you fill in the blank) I have been gardening for over 30 years and I find this program fun, easy to use, and incredibly helpful.

What I did not like About Grow Veg

First off, I have to say I looked at all of the vegetable garden plans out there, I did not like any of them much, other than this one. By far this was the most affordable, flexible, and useful in my books. Once I got started with it, I found little to complain about.

The one single thing I really wish they would improve is the ability to print layouts. I hope they fix this, this year, I had to fuss around to get my entire garden printed out at a size that was useful for me. I did get it printed and it did work, I just feel certain that there has to be a better way than the one they provide. It might be me, it might be my printer, but it seemed a bit harder than it needed to be.

For those with iPads, you can get Growveg on your tablet and take it outside with you, but that is not me, so I relied on a printed copy to take out to the garden with me.

So there is my Grow Veg Review, I hope you enjoyed reading it, this is supposed to be part of my Garden Planning Series but time got away with me and I never got back to finishing it. I still hope to do so, but I really wanted this post done for you before garden planning time is over with.

NOTE if I get enough interest in this post, I will create my own tutorial and walk through on how to get the most out of Grow Veg.