http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap13...
Sandi / Bubbles
If there was a way to import data that detailed for EVERY ATP member, into some standardized and searchable series of fields, it would be awesome.
It suggests some possible new fields if Dave implements month-by-month fields for our region climates:
- daily range of temperature swing (max/min)
- fog (rare / frequent / dense)
- snow accumulation (rare, frequent, depth?)
- % of days cloudy or overcast (thanks for this one, for the PNWS!)
>> We also have a column on what to plant each month.
>> I can post it also if it would help.
Perhaps an entire different WebApp would be needed. Dave already created one based on Last frost date, intended to apply anywhere, based on starting seeds indoors or outdoors assuming that a given plant should be sown or transplanted N weeks before or after the averaged last frost date.
Every seed packet in the world assumes the same thing. However, gardeners and farmers have to adjust those dates based on their local springtime and summer conditions (rainfall, speed of spring air warming, speed of spring soil warming, frequency of unusual cold snaps, earliness of summer "scorch" etc etc etc).
Your garden club has a great service. Right now, the only way I can think of to create something like that for ATP would be for individual members to enter their own experiences into a very large database, and then somehow share that info on a ZIP-code-by-ZIP-code basis.
And yet, micro-climate, slope, soil and personal differences in cultivation would make even Zip codes to broad a brush to paint with. That is a toughie!
Dave has something like that, where each type of plant has fields based on "weeks before or after average last frost date", plus the ability for members to submit suggestions for changing individual plants.
???? ... maybe columns for variation by region ... ????
???? ... some way to track differences of opinion and DISCOVER the patterns of why some people start some plants much earlier or later than others. .... ????
