This is just the beginning of a thought. Most of us list our USDA Hardiness Zone, but that actually says very little. It would be nice to be able to look at someone's profile and know more about their gardening situation. Or, reading some advice they give, be able to look up what kind of situation that advice was coming from.
How about a new feature within our public Profiles, like "How does your garden grow?"
or "Regional climate and other conditions"
or "My Gardening Situation".
It would probably include some things like these:
excessive summer heat (heat is a limiting condition)
cool summers are barely warm enough or long enough for tomatoes and peppers
frigid - winter low temp is a limiting condition: (USDA Hardiness)
can grow many crops or plants right through the winter
low (or high, or frequent) rainfall
first & last frost dates (50% and 90%)
length of frost-free growing season (days above freezing)
length of tomato growing season (days above 50 degrees)
degree days
high winds cause problems
flat / steep terrain
valley, mountain, plains, semi-desert, desert
urban, suburban, rural, forested, farm country
Soil:
- sandy soil
- heavy clay soil
- alkaline soil
- acid soil
- hardpan soil
At first I thought that could be done as a series of micro-badges, but I think it's better suited to a list of text phrases, like entries in the Plant Database.
Some of the stats can be looked up by ZIP code. If Dave can populate those automatically, great. Otherwise, maybe enough volunteers would come forward.to populate other people's stats.
- - USDA Zone
- - Sunset Zone
- - frost dates
- - length of growing season
- - rainfall
- - degree days
- - average winter low temp and avg. summer high temp.
Maybe some free-form text fields or "check all that apply" in categories like:
"I grow a lot of ,..." ... specific groups of plants or annuals / perennials / crops
"I would like to grow more of ..."
I grow in: field crops, rows, beds, raised beds, planters, pots, other (check all that apply)
I mostly start seeds indoors, direct sow, propagate cuttings, wintersow, buy plants (check all that apply)
hobby gardener, grow a lot of my own food, grow for market, farmer, sell seeds, sell plants
garden area: pots, baskets & planters on a deck, small beds, large beds, large yard, fields
