[tallulah]

Hi there!  I'm looking for some package for my Mac, which would enable me to put my design ideas down - a sort of graph paper style I guess, similar to interior design planners.  I want to plan where to put my new raised beds, and how big etc.  Thanks folks!

[DIGGER]

Find it hard to plan at home,so just tent to use a scrap of A4,do it do it down the lotte and stick it in the shed complete with dirty finger prints

[tallulah]

Might have answered my own question - am in process of downloading software from the BBC gardening site.

Nope!  Nothing's come up but a blank screen.

[RGManby]

I have just used M$ publisher that comes with office, its ok for giving you ideas about where to put things, but still think it best to get out with string and pegs, you can actually see it in the making then.

[Yorkie]

Have you looked at growveg.com - might be compatible with a Mac.  it used to be a 30 day free trial, then after that if you wanted to continue, you paid about £15p.a.

[noshed]

Get some tent pegs and string and a cheap tape measure and just do it. It's fun to plan it all out on paper but in my opinion it's better just to do it on site.

[Barry sharpe]

I am using openoffice calc IE you could use excel as well, just size the cells into squares representing a square foot or meter or whatever size you wish really. And then use the fill to colour the squares to represent things. If your like me you can create another sheet and use that to hold seed information, such as sowing, conditions etc. And then yet another sheet to create a calander of the year and a work plan. I am pretty sure it would not take a lot to even look at crop rotation etc. I am only new to the allotment thing, so have not figured out what information is good and what is not needed that said the spreadsheet is already giving me a realistic feel for what growing space i will actually have.

[tallulah]

Thanks for your replies.  I'll try the excel on openoffice, thanks Barry.  When I've got some ideas down, I'll then peg out and see if I want to make changes then.