Use Garden Calendar for:

Recommendations about how the phases of the moon and the astrological positionings for a given day will affect your plants.

 

Who should use Garden Calendar:

People who garden using lunar planting methods.

 

Features of Garden Calendar:

• Moon phase calendar
• Astrological calendar
• Date-specific plant care recommendations

 

Shortcomings of Garden Calendar:

• No planner features
• No mapping features
• No plant list
• No location-specific information
• Interface is a little clunky

 

The Garden Calendar app boasts:

The software “Garden calendar” contains recommendations for everyday handling of plants according to the phase of the Moon. Different phases of the Moon have different influence with plants. By using the software you will be able to tend plants properly according to the forces of nature. For example, during waning moon roots are very hurtable, so this is not a good time for transplanting.

Moreover, software recommendations take into account position of the Moon towards zodiacal constellation.

The software defines favorable days for garden activity: days for planting, watering, weeding and many other activities. 

The most distinctive feature of this calendar (unlike any of other calendars existed on the Internet) is the correction on precession phenomenon. As is well-known, precession phenomenon causes the move of first point of aries towards the Sun by 1degree the 72 years. Approximately 2000 years ago signs of the zodiac and zodiacal constellations almost coincided, but the move by one sign of zodiac (approximately 30degrees) has taken place between now and then. This points to the fact that ordinary lunar calendars go wrong with the position of the Moon in zodiacal constellations. This option is in programme settings.

 

My two cents:

If lunar planting is your thing, you’re likely to love this simple-to-use app. Garden Calendar is a pretty simple tool with a very specific purpose. Lunar planting has been around for… well, forever. Any gardener who relies on astrological positionings and/or moon phases will likely find this app helpful. 

I have to admit, I’m very ignorant in the lunar planting traditions (aside from what I accidentally gleaned from old farmer’s almanacs as a child), so I found reviewing this app incredibly fun. Even for a complete lunar-newbie, I was able to understand the astrological implications, and I actually learned a lot while experimenting with this app. For example, lunar planting proponents claim that the fragility of the roots of a plant when the moon is in Gemini allows for the best time to destroy weeds, till the soil, etc. However, when the moon is in Gemini, you shouldn’t plant anything, as it will grow into a stringy, weak plant. Without this app, I never would have even considered a connection. Now, the next time I have a leggy, droopy parsley, I’m legitimately likely to wonder what phase the moon was in when I planted it.

As for the app’s usability – it’s not the prettiest thing, but it tries. There are just a few buttons with simple controls – you basically just tap on whatever you want to filter the page with. For whichever day you’re looking at (using the calendar), the icons around the plant (on the right side of the screen) will update with simple “stoplight” color-coding to indicate whether it’s a good day to water, fertilize, plant, till, etc.

I personally will be uninstalling this app from my tablet, as I think the information is fun and interesting, but I can’t justify the storage space on my device. However, knowing me, I likely will reinstall it next spring to see what kinds of lunar planting trivia I can learn… I really do find it quite fascinating.

In the app, you can tap on an “information” button on the date to get detailed written instructions about plant tasks for the day. You can also filter your calendar based on task type – show “trim” tasks for the month, for example.

All in all, Garden Calendar is a simple, easy to use app. And it’s free, so – why not have a little fun?