Heres a nice project we can all get involved in over the cold dark days of winter.
As you know, the gardening season starts in spring, but planning is done over winter, particularly if you plan to grow things from seed.
In a series of sessions we will work our way through the Ideas Genie programs to use features which have been designed to help us in the various stages - ordering, sowing, repotting right through to planting out, and aftercare.
Heres an outline of what we will cover. This plan may change depending on how things go.
Session 1.
The Catalogs program GA040
Select plants from Catalogs which will be made available as downloads. A lot of prepartion work to do here, but it will be very much worthwhile.
You will use the Catalogs to buy your seed or plants either a) on-line, b) using email to place orders and pay by cheque/credit card, or c) Post the good old fashioned Order by snail mail with cheque enclosed.
In each case, the list of items will be selected from our new Catalogs.
I envisage a Preliminary, then Session 1a, 1b etc to cover the different catalogs, buy options etc
Session 2
The Tasks program GA047
Once the orders are placed, its time to plan when to sow, or when to plant. We will do that using the Tasks program.
This program underwent a major overhaul in the last upgrade. The old tasks program GA012 was replaced with a new one GA047.
Theres a LOT of features in there, and we will look at each one.
We will cover how to plan tasks for specimens.
We will also cover other uses for the Tasks program - plant care tasks such as pruning, dividing, feeding etc.
We will also work through the three types of task which can be planned with GA047.
I envisage a Session 2a, 2b etc etc to get through this.
Session 3
The Labels Program - GA048
Once you have bought your seed or new plants, you are ready to print labels.
This program comes with a number of "standard" labels. However, thanks to Toby (Bossgard) that list of Labels now includes professional quality labels which are readily available in the US. Toby and I worked on this at the beginning of the year. Toby now has a whole growing season of test results, and Ive learned tonight that they have been a great success - using a special ink to print on those labels. See other thread in this forum.
Here in the UK, thanks to the communication with a number of professional users, a number of horticulture labels suppliers have been identified and in this Session we will develop a set of labels for the UK/European market.
This should be a very interesting project, and you will learn how to print all kinds of fancy labels.
Session 4
Specimens and Events
Each time you perform a task, that is recorded as an Event. You will use GA047 (above) to track your tasks. Events are generated in GA047 when you record a task as Completed.
We will then use GA029 to see an overview of Tasks and Events.
Hidden (I fear) within that program is a very well planned out feature, based on a model sent to me by a professional who grew 180 plant species from seed each year. This is a great opportunity to explain how that works.
Session 5
The Print Photos Program GA049
We must have a look at this program and make sure everyone can use it.
The printed photos are perfect for inclusion with the reports "My Garden", "My Plants" and "Garden Tours"
May add to this as more things come to mind folk!
Over to you to make suggestions of anything you'd like to cover.
