A more chatty hello from Laura in CT

[LauraCT]

Hi All,

After browsing the forum for a while, I have a sneaky feeling I am a bit out of my league. Although I have always aspired to create a cottage garden, my attempts have been challenging. I grow most of my flowers from seed, don’t always know the botanical name for a plant, and frequently forget what I put in and where I planted it. I am a disorganized gardening aficionado, but not a pro. 

I started gardening about 30 years ago, outside of Denver, Colorado. We lived at 9,000 feet above sea level and had a growing season of 90 days. I did not try a cottage garden in Denver, but concentrated on native American flowers suitable for the western part of the US. When I moved my family to Connecticut, I thought growing conditions might be more supportive. It is, after all, in New England .  Unfortunately, my dreams have not materialized (yet). After many years of building flower beds in CT, I turned to growing vegetables for health reasons. The produce in American supermarkets is scary- we have no labeling for GMO crops and our food is heavily treated with pesticide. Has anyone noticed how huge our sweet peppers are, these days?

My vegetable gardening has recently expanded to permaculture and I am slowly trying to convert my back yard into an edible landscape.  So far, I have a dwarf peach tree, several currants, grapes, raspberries, strawberries and filberts. All but the peach and strawberries were planted last year. Learning how to preserve my produce is, now, high on my list of things to do. Canned tomatoes just can’t rival tomatoes grown at home!  Annually, I grow most of my flowers and all vegetables and herbs from seed. This is what I am hoping Ideas Genie will help me with. It’s hard to keep track of the large number of seeds I plant each year. Many are started in my basement on a small propagation pad, and moved to a large table with fluorescent lighting until I can move them outside.  This is quite a long wait for tender annuals since my last expected frost date is in the middle of May! My flower beds have suffered from this new interest, but I plan to get back to them this year.

Other hobbies include digital photography, reading real books, and listening to books on CD during my 140 mile round trip commute to work. I work in IT for one of the largest casinos in the world- a Native American casino located in southeastern Connecticut- Mohegan Sun. It’s an interesting business…
Am glad to be here and hope to be able to contribute, once in a while.

Laura

[ideasguy]

Never feel that you are out of your league here, Laura. You are very much welcome and one of us.
We want you to feel comfortable, and that you are among friends.
You've got the enthusiasm and drive we need around here.
We'll do our best to help you on plant names, and I will certainly do all I can to help you master Ideas Genie.

Gardeners learn mostly from their own experiments and the more adventurous they are the more they learn. You have already thrown in your own gems of knowledge - your own personal experiences of growing things in two obviously quite different zones - Denver and Connecticut.
By contributing, perhaps other gardeners who are idly surfing will see your postings, and join the forum, and expand our knowledge.

[NightHawk]

I fully agree with George there Laura.

This is not a Forum for purely expert gardeners - that was never George's intention.  It's true that a lot of our members are very knowledgeable, some are less so, but we can all learn new tips and tricks from even the most novice of gardeners' experiences.

I'm by no means in the 'expert' category, but Kathy (my better half  ) is more knowledgeable than me.  My strengths lie in other areas, but I still like to think that I can contribute to the running of the Forum, and we both thoroughly enjoy the camaraderie the Forum offers.

So Laura, don't feel intimidated but feel free to share your gardening experiences with us.  And don't forget that you can also contribute in other areas of the Forum.  You mentioned your interest in Photography, for example.  We have a section devoted to just that, where our members share their photos of plants and other things, and explain the techniques they use.

Our Computers section is another area that is popular.

As you familiarise yourself with the Forum you'll soon discover that it offers some very diverse interests.

Our members are very willing to help each other with any problems, queries, etc., so no-one is made to feel that they are asking silly questions.

As your own gardens develop, let us know what you're up to.  We all like to see how others are managing their gardens and we can all get inspiration from that.

Laurie.

[Palustris]

And they don't come much more disorganised than me!

[bossgard]

Hi! Laura from CT.

And may I welcome you to the Forum, too. I live and garden in the US, in the great state of Washington way over on the Pacific Coast near Seattle, WA. We are in maritime weather, with extremes of both high and low temperatures

Like you, I major in vegetables and a minor in ornamentals. I grow most if not all of both by seed.

I am retired after having a retail business in my local city for 55 years, live in an English Tudor house built in 1930, which also happens to be the family estate. I purchased IG Pro to help me with creating some curb appeal to my property when some easement work is completed.

George is a wonderful person. I’ve been using his gardening program(s) since 2007. Just stick with him and you will become a ‘whiz’ at keeping all of your gardening data organized. His computer program(s) are wonderful, they are the most complete that I have ever seen or used.

Here’s an example (I think) that’s really neat about using IG - my vegetable and flower seed packets have full color pictures on the front, and growing instructions on the back. George will probably introduce you to the IG Vegetable Project, which will explain on how you can incorporate that information directly into your computer. Just a couple clicks with your mouse and that job is done.

Enjoy your software, and we will enjoy your presence on the Forum.

Good Luck!

- Toby

Oh! The software has a wonderful Labeling Program, which I’m sure you will make use of in labeling your many seed starts!

[LauraCT]

Hi All,

Thanks for your warm welcome- I feel it  . I bought the software mostly because of George's personal touch- very unusual in this day and age. As I said before, hope to lend some enthusiasm and contributions to the site.

Laura

[ideasguy]

I'm flattered, Toby and Laura
Having gone to such lengths to develop that stuff, I like to make sure each user can get up and running with it.
Volumes are too low to be commercial. Through the software I make friends, not millions
I dearly wish more users would participate in the forum. I communicate extensively in one to one emails with very enthusiastic and interesting people, and encourage each one to register. I know they would enjoy the community and have so much in common with the other folk I communicate with.
Needless to say, each registration is an exciting event and its always a pleasure to welcome each new member to the Ideas Genie Community.

[LauraCT]

George,
Here in the States, at least, most people seem to spend their computer time on Facebook (not me- I have never logged on...). Don't take it personally. As a newbie, I can tell you that I question any post I feel like making. For example, on the exchange between you and Toby on Articles, I was going to respond with "Yikes! And I thought the veggie project was challenging!", but I decided it was trivial and not of value, so I didn't. Maybe people are hesitant because your core group is so experienced and they don't want to trouble you/everyone for "silly" questions. I don't care if I sound inexperienced, but do not want to be perceived as trite. 
I have spent most of the day on the Vegetable project. I have 30 plant entries and more to go.  I printed the tutorial, which ended up being 26 pages, and it is fairly easy to follow, but think it may daunt some people. I had some struggles, but have worked through them, so far. I haven't figured out my vegetable rotation, yet, so selecting a garden for each has been challenging. I'm working on specimens and culture info now. I still love the thoroughness of your program and hope all this input will result in meaningful reports I can use when I'm reading to start propagating....
Laura

[ideasguy]

Thanks for that posting Laura.

Its always much more lengthy to describe HOW to so something than to actually do it.

I do my best to describe each and every step in detail, so even more lengthy.
Experienced users may find this excessive, but I have to make tutorials, lessons and all help items as complete as possible.

I learned from others who set tutorials in various circles - programming etc.
You get to step 2 of 5 and the "teacher" assumes you know something which may be apparent and totally obvious to him, so he moves on to step 3 without a full explanation, and you are lost.

Good to see you are making progress. Give the articles lesson a go. Its a very useful program.