Clydes Vegetable Garden Planner

1Clydes Vegetable Garden Planner is a handy, easy-to-use vegetable gardening slide chart for the home and hobby gardener. It was created in 1991 by Clyde Majerus, an avid gardener from Grovespring, MO. At this writing, over 100,000 charts have been printed, and distributed throughout the US and Canada.

History

The slide chart was first conceived in the early 1990s, while Clyde lived in Centralia, MO. He was attempting to plan the sequence of events in his 50'x120' garden. His goal was to orchestrate garden work around the upcoming birth of his third child. The baby was due in June 1991. He wanted to plant beans in his garden so as to be available to help his wife in the delivery, without having to worry AbOUT his garden going to waste. During that time, he happened to be studying 'Time Phasing' as a part of his Industrial-Engineering day job. Many manufacturing companies use a time-phased plan for raw materials and parts requirements, in order to insure on-time delivery of the final product. The planning system is known as MRP, (Material Requirements Planning). MRP involves using a horizontal calendar, and planning backward from the customer’s expected delivery date. Beginning with a time-phased horizontal calendar, (ie; Jan, Feb, Mar…), he scribed a line for the average frost date, and a 2nd line for the expected baby’s birth. Next, the various garden vegetables were listed, first to last, in order, as they are planted relative to the frost date. He counted weeks from the frost to first planting date. That is when the slide chart idea came. Looking at his personal garden plan, he realized that if the frost line could be made to slide, the chart would be useful as a tool for gardeners throughout the country.

Development

He obtained a copyright for the chart, had a batch of charts printed, and went into business. However, the chart was not well received, and people did not understand its value. He took a new job and he and his family moved, so the project then sat idle for about nine years. Then a friend suggested they begin offering them on the internet. It worked; since 1999 they have sold thousands of charts to gardeners all over the United States. Many charts are also purchased by garden stores, and garden centers; customized with their name in the header, and used as a promo or premium. Several mail order garden catalogs have also carried his garden planner.