Big plans and a simple solution

"March is a month of considerable frustration - it is so near spring and yet across a great deal of the country the weather is still so violent and changeable that outdoor activity in our yards seems light years away." Thalassa Cruso

I'm sure most of you are familiar with Mother Earth News Magazine(www.motherearthnews.com). When my wife and I were first married a friend of ours had gotten us a subscription. At the time we were living in a small apartment with no real lawn to speak of and this magazine provided hours of fuel for our imaginations. Eventually I got to the point where I started to feel that aside from a bit of practical advice here and there that the magazine was geared towards people who were trust fund babies or corporate lawyers from NYC who decided to give it all up and buy a piece land in the Adirondacks. Simply put the lifestyle advertised cover to cover was way out of the price range of most of the people I know.

But with that said very recently my wife purchased a birthday gift for me from the Mother Earth News website that I absolutely love! So I figured I should pass this information along for anyone who may be interested. Meghann set me up with a years subscription to their online garden planner. It is a really great tool for those of us that appreciate the visuals involved in setting up a large garden. It is easy to navigate and provides a lot of great information for you while you are setting up your plot. For example it list companion plants for most of the veggie,fruit,flower or herbs,frost dates for your area of the country and it also sends out emails to remind you when it is time to plant or harvest particular plants. I have 4 small gardens I will be planting this summer and now that I am using this program I can see the amount of work and planning that is going to be involved. Hopefully the following link works, if not go to the Mother Earth Website and look for the "Garden Planner" banner towards the bottom left of the home page. http://www.motherearthnews.com/gardenplanner/gardenplanner.html#