One of our avocations here at Datamorphosis is gardening. Gardening can involve a fair amount of detailed information management so we can monitor successes and failures of various things we are growing over the years. So we developed a model to help us clarify and understand our garden information requirements. As we got into it we decided to formalize the model and use the garden example in a case study. We used the model to design a Garden Database and to deploy it using ddl generated by the modeling tool. The idea was to illustrate the application of data modeling methods to a fairly simple problem.   Like most "simple" problems it turned out to be complex enough to be interesting. Our initial assumption was that the model would be about plants in a fixed place in a garden.

First, it's not about plants, it is about plantings. A planting is one or more starts (seeds, etc) for a cultivar from a lot (packet, etc) planted on a specified date in some kind of container. Second, it turns out that plantings rarely start in a garden. They often start in germination trays under lights. And their location may change from the utility room where they germinate to other locations to harden. They may be transplanted from their original germination container to larger containers. And finally they may be transplanted not to a garden per se but to any of several specific garden beds where the bed itself is the container.

These basic entities form the heart of the Garden model. So far, it is still pretty simple and straightforward. This simple model illustrates our initial take on what gardening is about. First there are cultivars which we obtain in lots consisting of packets of seeds or boxes of seedlings. We take starts from a lot and plant them in containers as plantings.