It is that time of year when folks start planning their farms as well as home gardens.  We are no different and Tracy and I are in the midsts of planning our small CSA farm in Lafayette, Colorado.  Prior to starting our CSA farm in 2009, Tracy & I had just been tending our own organic gardens, and running our main project, Colorado Local Sustainability.  We created Colorado Local Sustainability and the Rocky Mountain Growers Directory to help market sustainable farms and ranches in and around Colorado, and to help educate the public about the need to support local food.  Our desire is to see small farms not only stay alive, but thrive, and for new farms to start growing around the country.  With that thought in mind, we started our own little farm!

When we started our farm, the planning part was our stumbling block.  We had talked with many farmers and most were doing their planning on note cards, notebooks, or rolls of butcher paper.  Yeah, that works, but we wondered if there was any software to simplify things.  We tried the online gardening software we could find, but it didn't answer all of our questions, and didn't seem serious enough for our needs.

Questions remained... "How many people can we feed?"  "How much can we grow in the space we have?"  Tracy decided to use her rather advanced spreadsheet skills and create our own planner.  After a ton of research using several different sources, we came up with details on potential yields for various crops, and many other details.  Tracy's calculator only required some basic info about our growing space and harvest goals, and it took the complexity out of the planning.  

We planned our small farm using biointensive methods & spacing, succession planting, and intercropping.  The calculator did the work!  We quickly figured out we could grow enough for 25 individuals (on 4000 s.f. of planted space), plus have extra to sell at the farm stand or to restaurants.

We quadruple checked the figures the calculator gave us and it all seemed quite accurate.  When we finally began seeding and transplanting, it because very clear that the calculator was doing it's job correctly.  At that point we realized that other farmers or gardeners might find this useful for their own planning, so we made it into an online program.  The Fantastic Farm and Garden Calculator was born! 

Now, almost a year later, farmers and gardeners across the U.S., and parts of Canada are using the  Fantastic Farm and Garden Calculator to plan their farms, CSA's, as well as home or market gardens.  

When you register to use our online farm & garden planner, you not only get a valuable planning to tool for 1 year, but you are also supporting a great cause!  100% of the user fees go to support Colorado Local Sustainability and LandShare Colorado which helps us to continue our working supporting local farms and local food.