Gardening is an activity I love, it a past time or hobby that requires both mental and physical exercise. It’s not enough to physically break your back maintaining your garden, you also need to observe, think and plan before taking action, that's a fair bit of mental exercise too.
Having healthy productive plants requires tracking and remembering what you did, when and what action is next due, when. The old school method followed by serious gardeners is to have cards for each plant and the cards are updated regularly, so at a glance you know all about the plant.
But what if you can do all that tracking and planning with an app? Wouldn’t that be great? It would be much easier too.
I’ve been looking for a good app since the day I started to dabble in soil a couple of years back. And, I did find some really good apps but, they didn’t work well for non-US countries, that makes them useless for me in India. Then I found Gardroid.
What the Gardroid App’s supposed to do
Gardroid is quite a comprehensive gardening app. It doesn’t offer much in flowers, herbs and shrubs but it rocks for vegetables (Pro version has herbs and fruits). It offers a list of vegetables that you can choose and read about. (How these vegetables are listed in based on the type of category chosen - month, soil type or US hardiness zone.)
You can create a list of plants in your garden. Each plant will have details about it - when was it planted, transplanted, watered, fertilised, etc. You keep adding this data as it grows. (It also reminds you based on the plant.)
For each plant you can also add notes and mark each watering. Based on all this information it tentatively predicts harvest time. You also have the option to mark harvest time as an event on your calendar with one click, so you don’t forget.
How I’m using the Gardroid App
I use the app to track my vegetables and read about growing them as it’s the first time I’m growing a lot of them. Knowing when to sow and transplant is useful information when growing something.
Then comes marking them so each has a card from sow to harvest. I find the reminders really helpful and knowing when to harvest is really helpful when growing root vegetables like potatoes and radish.
My thoughts on the Gardroid App
I find the Gardroid app really helpful as it offers more options than just US hardiness zones and that makes it usable in India. But I’d love to see the option to choose my country/location and get plant recommendations based the climate and soil here.
Knowing what you can grow and when it will grow, is valuable information for newbie farmers. But for now, of all the apps available out there, I think Gardroid is the best. It offers the most options and is the easiest to use.
App details and link
Stars - ★★★★★
Developer - Google Inc.
Devices - Android
Size - 3.7M
Installs - 10,000 - 50,000
Link - Android Store
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