Great Gardening Apps and Websites

By Joshua Fuder

[Home Life] Despite your experience or area of interest, there are some excellent apps and websites that help answer all sorts of gardening questions.

Sun and Weather

Nearly all fruits and vegetables require eight hours of full, direct sunlight each day. Knowing how much sun the proposed spot for that new raised bed or berry bush receives can be a bit of a guessing game, especially if you’re new to a property. SunCalc. org is excellent for showing sun exposure and its track across the sky. Set an address and dates of the year to get a realistic number of sunlight hours.

UGA’s weather network of 83 stations across the state is a wonderful resource (GeorgiaWeather.net). Rainfall, soil, and air temperature are great, but the real power of this site is its calculator functions. Last frost date helps to understand how late we might experience tomato killing temperatures in spring. Chill hours and rainfall data over a set period is also useful information.

Soil and Seeds

If you need to fill a raised bed with soil, check out the soil calculator at Gardeners.com. When starting seeds indoors, check out the seed-starting date calculator for vegetables, herbs, and a wide variety of flowers at JohnnySeeds.com.

Pests and Problems

UGA has a couple of apps to help fruit and vegetable gardeners identify common disease and insects/ pests: MyIPM for fruits and VegDr for vegetables. A great app for identifying and documenting everything from unknown plants and insects to birds and reptiles is iNaturalist. This apps’ algorithms and sheer number of users make it surprisingly accurate to identify unknown insects and plants. By sharing information through this app, you’re also helping to contribute to science and researchers who are studying everything from invasive species to climate.

Weall know that April showers bring May flowers. In Georgia, we might also confidently predict that last month’s rain will bring this month’s mosquitoes. And a recent season of heavy rains will likely yield a bumper crop of them.

Jody Wheeler and Chad Woodall are the co-owners of Mosquito-Free, the leading locally owned mosquito control service. Since they started their business in 2016, they’ve experienced rapid, year-to-year growth in Canton, Woodstock, and the surrounding areas.

With Mosquito-Free’s 8th anniversary in view, those in need of a mosquito control company can try the services at a perfect time, since the company is now featuring its best offer to date.

WHAT SETS MOSQUITO-FREE APART?

From the beginning, Wheeler and Woodall have wanted their interactions with both customers and employees to be positive in every facet.

“We wanted to be the Chick-fil-A of mosquito control,” Woodall says, recalling a certain conversation the two of them had at the outset. He says the success they’ve experienced is largely due to the people they employ.

“During our interview process with each prospective employee, Jody and I tell the story of our initial business planning sessions. It’s important that our team shares our vision. And there’s loyalty on both sides — theirs and ours,” Woodall explains.

The average tenure of Mosquito-Free employees is more than four years. And, currently, the entire team hails from Cherokee County, which adds to the local character of the company. The full-time technicians are licensed in mosquito control and receive ongoing training through the Georgia Department of Agriculture.

Customers have noticed Mosquito-Free’s positive vibe and reliability, having rewarded the company by voting it “Best of Life” for Pest Control/ Mosquito Control in Family Life magazines. Customers have further designated the company as their “Neighborhood Favorite” through Nextdoor

Giving Back To The Community

Mosquito-Free serves Canton and Woodstock as well as Acworth, Jasper, Kennesaw, and neighboring areas. As lifelong residents of Cherokee County, Wheeler and Woodall have found that these cities form a tightknit community.

“The support of this community is another reason for our company’s growth,” says Wheeler. “Area residents love to ‘keep it local’ by supporting businesses such as ours.”

From the time they launched their business, the co-owners have desired to

By Patti Richter