permaculture

[Chrys Ostrander <chrys@thefutureisorganic.net>]

Hi Folks,

For quite a while I have been waiting for a new computerized farm 
planning system that I heard was being developed to become available for 
use. I had heard about it on a market farming listserve I subscribe to. 
Yesterday I learned that it is now "live" as a beta testing environment 
and FREE for the first three months' trial period if you sign up now (I 
believe they said it would only be $4.00/mo. after the trial period ends).

I've played with it a little and it is quite good. I say this having 
also used another farm planning tool that was very clunky. This new one 
has a lot of neat features. It's primarily geared towards small-scale 
market farmers, but I see some aspects that might be very useful to 
permaculturists. The developers WANT feedback from early adopters, so 
perhaps, if enough permaculturists sign up to try it out and gently prod 
them to add features that would be of use to permaculturists for 
creating, implementing and tracking permaculture designs, they might 
very well be receptive.

It's kinda fun (although a bit slow over my sluggish satellite Internet 
connection) and is set up fairly intuitivly. This is a good time of year 
to play with such toys and I encourage you to go to their website, 
explore what they are offering and sign up for a free account, if you 
want to, to start using the tool for your project-- or try it out 
anyway. They have some on-line documentation and help files. I am 
willing also to try and help if folks post questions (or comments on how 
it could be improved for permaculture) on the new community forum on the 
Inland Northwest Permaculture Guild website:

http://www.inlandnorthwestpermaculture.com/forum

The website for the new farm planning system is:

http://www.agsquared.com

Chrys

--
*Chrys Ostrander, Director of Farming Programs*
People for Environmental Action and Community Health
"Local Food for All"

*Manager,
p.e.a.c.h. Community Farm at Pine Meadow*
10425 S. Andrus Rd.
Cheney, Wa 99004
509-448-3066
farms@peachlocal.com
www.peachlocal.com