New to forum and gardening

[AuntPol]

Hi folks,
I'm new to gardening (well sort of - its been over 25 years since I've had a garden and you could put what I remember on a pin head).
I moved to my new home 2 years ago and my son in law has taken most of that time to build me a patio and raised beds and I've only recently got a shed and greenhouse.
So far, all I have grown is lilies - I started with 10 bulbs when I moved in two years ago - we dug them up last week and from just those 10 bulbs I have 200+ babies.
Knowing that its the end of the growing season I have just been buying equipment and seeds ready for next year and went just a tad overboard - I think I now have about 40 packets of seed.
I got out a pad and pen and started to try to organise them all as to when I should be sowing, planting etc. and got into a right mess.  That's when I searched the internet for software and came across George's programs.
I am now emailing back and forth with George and deciding between flower genie and ideas genie.

[ideasguy]

Welcome to the Ideas Genie community Annie.

I have to say, the progress youve made today is not bad for a days work
I hope you will enjoy it here. You'll find people to help in lots of things from computers through photography to our favourite pastime- gardening.
 

[AuntPol]

George, I am laughing ...

Once upon a time, I was an IT tutor and web designer and also married to a programmer.  I consider my progress today to be extremely slow. 

I guess with age comes a slowing down of the brain and the need for glasses.  I love the huge full screen pages on flower genie and am having a little trouble with the smaller screens of the ideas genie. 

I WILL figure it all out - even though I am hanging my head in shame at having to go through the demo's step by step, (in my day a demo or manual was usually non-existant) I refuse to be beaten when this seems like the very thing that I want.

[ideasguy]

Thats a pretty impressive background Annie

If you go into preferences, you can find options to make the screens bigger, the same as Flower Genie. See the checkbox Allow screen resizing and Use my screen size (drag the Preferences screen to fill your screen).
I'll let you play with the options there

[NightHawk]

Welcome to the Forum Annie.

It is always a great pleasure for me to greet new members.

Regardless of your gardening expertise, your comments, questions, suggestions are very much appreciated.  Participation in all sections of the Forum are what makes it work.

Enjoy 

[AuntPol]

Hi George,

Thanks for the screen sizing instructions - much better!

If you ever need help with web design - I'm your woman - just ask.  I also used to test programs years ago so if you ever want testing done I absolutely delight in finding holes to be fixed lol.
 
I have just got rid of everyone for the day (hopefully they will stay away) and made a cuppa so that I can settle down and go through the demo's step by step.  I was tempted to jump ahead to the section where you say I can add properties but reckon that after yesterday I should figure out how the program works before I go altering it.

Hi kathy and Laurie,

Thank you for the welcome.

Gardening expertise - zilch !  But I am loving having a garden again after all these years and now that all the hard work is done building patios, raised beds, sheds and greenhouses the darned season is ending.  Isn't that just typical.  But I have dozens of packets of seeds and am straining at the bit to get going.  Can't beleive I have to wait till march groan!

[AuntPol]

Erm George,

Confused!  On the main page there are two buttons for plants and gardens (one with GA004 and the other GA027).  Why are they labelled the same?  Whats the difference?

I am gonna drive you mad with questions over the next couple of days so get the tranquilisers or the scotch ready lol

[ideasguy]

They are two different interfaces (to the same database of course).

They offer two quite different methods of adding a plant, described in this Step by Step demo here:-
http://www.ideasforgardens.net/wolbdemo/
Method A uses GA027, Others like GA004 use Method B.
Its a matter of personal choice. Have fun arriving at a decision
I use GA004 mostly.

Just spotted your problem in the Demo in your next posting.
Ive just sent you an email to resolve this off line.
Note: Its nothing to do with running in Evaluation mode. The only restriction in Evaluation mode is you cant add any more than 40 plants.

[AuntPol]

Hi George,

I have now gone through the whole of the demos and followed step by step and not a single problem.  (so much for laying down with a book and doing it all tomorrow).

I am so impressed with this software.  And I've even been over to a gardening forum I am a member of and told them about it.

So now that I am ready, how do I buy it?

[ideasguy]

Well done Annie! Ive sent you an email.
Many thanks for telling your friends on the other forum and spreading the word

[Palustris]

Welcome. Nice to see folks from Gardener's Corner gathering here as well.