Hi all

I use Excel every chance i get and believe it's an amazing tool. I recently used it to create a planting plan for our high tunnel this fall. I will say that if your garden layout is not "boxy" (with right angles), this won't be a good fit, but for my long rectangular beds it was great. You can do it all approximately to scale, and use different colors and labels. Important tip: start with a template that shows the outer dimensions and beds, then open a new tab and copy and paste the template to make a unique plan for each year. So one tab would be called "template" and the other tabs would be named by year. That makes for an easy reference when you're trying to recall what you planted last year and whether the timing can be improved.

I've also used Excel extensively for farm planting plans and using the formulas you can embed in the cells makes it easy to calculate planting/seeding dates and harvest dates.

I've also used SketchUp, an open-source drafting program that's made for amateur architects, but can certainly be used to plan a garden with 3D and every shape (no limited to boxy ones). That's useful for a landscape design where height is important.