Using IG for Vegetable garden

[diegartenfrau]

So George, why are showing sad faces then

I don't know if it the best in the world though, but it is definitely the best I personally have seen and used. Who knows, there might be one in some country I don't know about, or would never use because of language difficulties 
I always think it is so strange, when American businesses claim their product, doesn't matter if it is a burger or some technical thing, boast theirs is the best in the world. Especially if one knows the average American doesn't travel outside the country and doesn't know much about the rest of the world. I've never came across this boasting, when I still lived in Germany.

 >>Hence, I selected an option which automatically adjusted, depending on the background. <<

that's the problem though George. as you see the picture above is mainly white background. In the GA005 program if I pull up the picture with the coordinates set, the Lasso frame is black and easy to see. But when I pull the same picture up in the GA004 program the coordinates/lasso are white, you hardly can see them and they are on the wrong place.

>>I could provide a pop-up to allow the user to select the border width, colour/shape etc, so you could select from the pop-up if a particular  lasso was hard to see for any selected photo.
Overkill?<<

That actually sounds like a nice idea. I don't think it would be overkill nor that hard for people to use. I think once you got trough the program, that you actually manage to link and lasso plants, it should be easy as cake to use that feature.

I will try to do the multiple lassos for now. But it sure would be useful to do free form lassoing. I know some other programs have free form shape drawing, think of some of the photo editing or paint programs.

I will go now, I have to input more data into the program.
Now since my kids are back in school, (I think I once mentioned we were homeschooling) they wanted to go back, I have more time, especially quiet time in the mornings. I can get a lot of more computer work done and other things.

Not that we didn't like homeschooling, but it made life a lot busier for me.

Isabell

[ideasguy]

Hey, no sad faces here   
It was an embarassed "smiley" (I think)

I'm embarassed about that "wrong place" thing.
As explained elsewhere, its an error that happened when I introduced resizing.
You and other members will be pleased to know that I spotted that boob recently, and fixed it.
Did you do those downloads?
IG 5 and IG Pro 5 have tested OK. Give it a go when you get your version (hope to despatch it tomorrow) and I trust all will be perfect again (as it was in the original IG)

Re:

I could provide a pop-up to allow the user to select the border width, colour/shape etc, so you could select from the pop-up if a particular  lasso was hard to see for any selected photo.

I will do that, as soon as time allows, Isabell. Ive a few priority thing to do which will keep me busy for a few weeks.

RE:

I know some other programs have free form shape drawing, think of some of the photo editing or paint programs.

I'll do some research to see if I can do something like that.
I did read that users complained that it was a bit "fiddley" as we say in Ireland (translated =irritatingly Intricate, I suppose)
The drag a rectangle is super fast. I know, I know - you're going to say "Lets have both"   
We shall see how development goes.

[diegartenfrau]

Hi George,

well, there will be no cooking dinner this night and probably not tomorrow night either. 
I lost all my Vegetable garden data in the swap file. 
It is only good that I hadn't worked on the flower data base at all, so I never deleted all the vegetables I already had in there. So now I am redoing the Swap database.

So right now I am deleting all the flower data. Is there a faster way in deleting more then one flower at a time? It is a bit cumbersome to go into each plant file (double click) then click edit, then click delete, then click yes and finally ok.
I know it is probably a security feature for people who mistakenly delete to many plants but I think it would be really helpful if in the program GA027 you could select more then one plant and then at the front screen there would be a quick delete button.

Clicking that much makes my shoulder hurt  and takes too long.

Isabell

[ideasguy]

No quick solution, I'm afraid. The system only allows one plant to be deleted at a time.

Good to see all the Veggy plants were still in the Flower Database.
As indicated in another posting running at same time as this one, Ive requested to take your probem offline until we get you up and running. We can the document our working configuration for benefit of other members.

[diegartenfrau]

Hi all,

this morning I have been working on setting coordinates for the vegetables into the garden picture, the sketch of the garden area I scanned into the computer.
Now maybe you remember I separated my Gardener divisions into Years (veg garden 2007, veg garden 2008 and so on), then the garden divisions into Upper and lower Vegetable garden and then the garden areas into numbered Beds, but each Bed is listed 3 times for Bed 1 Spring, Bed 1 Summer, Bed 1 Fall/Winter.
So now I have all the Plants assigned to the Beds, for each Season (Well as much I could remember, some of the data I didn't have on paper and it got lost in the Computer problem I had).

So now I set coordinated for the first and second bed and I think this is not working that well for vegetable gardens. I do like the possibility of being able to set coordinates for the flower garden, where I think it is a great feature. But in the vegetable garden, one has so much Data to set coordinates for, because you change the beds so often, replant them with different things, or the same in succession, I think it makes everything muddled, hard to oversee and it is too much work to set that many coordinates.

I think it would be easier to just make lot's of copies of the garden area picture, then for each season mark on one copy where you planted what and then just scan that picture into the computer and link it to the correlating garden area.

I will play around it for a little while, maybe I change my mind again on that or I figure something completely different out altogether.

Isabell

[ideasguy]

I'm looking forward to hearing what works for you Isabell, and Toby is looking over your shoulder on this as well.
Great we got that problem sorted out!!

[diegartenfrau]

Hi all,

I have been very busy this winter with inputting vegetable data into the program. Don't think I will get it all done for this gardening season though, there now since the outdoor season has started, I don't get too much computer time with Ideas Genie Pro.

Since I got some Teenage Boys in High school now, whose social scenes have picked up tremendously, they do not seem to take that school thing >learning, homework, studying, applying themselves in school< too serious, you know Teenage Hormones getting in the way, the only time I am on the computer I seem to be researching stuff, to get them more engaged and out of trouble. Can't wait that their brains get back connected to them.  So those Teens keep me busy.

We are also just starting the process to remodel the kitchen which came with the house. Yeah, I'm getting finally a European kitchen with German made appliances. You in Europe, have no idea what that means to me. After so many years cooking with a badly working, poorly designed kitchens and terrible ovens I am looking so forward it.

So yeah, does leave me with very little time. So don't expect to see much of me on here until late fall.

But that's how far I have gotten with IG pro.

I added all my vegetables into the database now. Mostly basic info for them, although some I have started to add Cultural notes with  and articles about the specific vegetable in for easy access to growing info.  Then I added the culture grades in the GA100S30CG program for some of them. After that I thought it would be neat to set up tasks, which tell me when to seed indoor, seed outdoor, harden off plants, transplant and plant things at the right time. Something I really need help with, there I often miss the timing for specific tasks. I eventually want to also add tasks for fertilizing and when to harvest. So I added those plant care classifications and then in GA100S30PC I set the plant care up for each particular vegetable. Which then was used in GAO47 the Task program, to set up the different tasks. So far I just added tasks for seed indoor, seed outdoor, harden off, transplant and plant for all the vegetables I am planning to grow this year. Some vegetables I grow in succession, like Carrots for example so I set up several dates for those kind. Now I just can open the task menu and see what I need to start in pots indoor or outside and when it is time to harden off.
One thing would be neat to have, in the GA100S30PC it would be really useful if one could choose different months for some Care topics, because some Vegetables can be grown over several months, but the program only lets me chose one month at a time.
I can somewhat work around it, by just adding the different dates in the task program, but it does get a bit confusing with too many dates on the task.
It would be especially useful to assign different planting dates to different cultivators of the same vegetable. If you want to stagger the planting times.
Anyway its easy now to print out the info, what I need to seed out or plant and take it into the garden.

I also added Crop rotations with grades from A to F to the Cultural Requirement and Property file program to be able to separate the vegetable into rotation groupings, which veggies are planted together. Now if I want to find, which veggies should go together, I can do a query and print this list out, to take into the garden.

Already I feel like the IG Pro is a big help in my vegetable garden planning. As I put in more growing info, I won't even have to pace through my books to look up things. All the specific vegetable growing info will be right at my fingertips.

greetings Isabell

[ideasguy]

Great to see you back on the forum
Wow! A lot of info there Isabell. Ive said this before - you are very innovative in applying the IG Pro features to your vegetable application. Its very pleasing to read how you have mastered the Cultures/Plant Care features and the the Tasks program.

Heres a couple of tips for you, based on hat you have told us.
Tip 1 - RE:

One thing would be neat to have, in the GA100S30PC it would be really useful if one could choose different months for some Care topics, because some Vegetables can be grown over several months, but the program only lets me chose one month at a time.

You can do this already.
Get into the Plant Care screen - GA100S30PC - for a plant (e.g. use GA004)
Select a Care topic
To MULTI select months, use Ctrl-Click
i.e. Hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard, and click on the Month names.
Then click one of the Apply buttons.
You can click consecutive months (e.g. Feb, Mar, Apr) or non-consecutive months (Mar Apr, Aug, Sept)

Tip 2 - RE

It would be especially useful to assign different planting dates to different cultivators of the same vegetable. If you want to stagger the planting times

Can you explain what you mean by cultivators ?
a) If Cultivars - i.e. different named varieties of, say, Lettuce, then create a new plant profile for each Cultivar

b) If different sowings of a plant, then you should use the Specimens feature.
Add a specimen for each Sowing you do for a Plant. No need for creating a Batch record for this application (keeps it simpler)
Thus, for Lettuce 'Varname', you could have specimens called, March Sowing, April Sowing, May sowing
In Tasks program, you can create a Task for each of the Specimens.
I would recommend a separate Task Number for each specimen.

Hope this helps you in your enterprising application, Isabell

Are you also using the 2nd database for your Flowers? Everything OK there?

[diegartenfrau]

I will play around with your suggestions tomorrow. It is supposed to rain tomorrow so I might have some time for that. I report back to you how it works for me.
Cultivators, I did mean different named varieties of the same plant. For example I like to stager my carrot planting. So I started out with the carrot Little Finger and Amsterdam, but for my next planting I like to use a different named carrot. This way I harvest different carrots, which will make it easier for me to evaluate the particular variety.

I haven't played much with the flower base, I did put more of my plant names in. I am trying to input the names ASAP as soon I acquire the plants, but it doesn't always work out this way. So I have lots of plants all over the garden which I still need to catalog .

right now my focus is on the vegetable garden, so it will be easier to manage that. That alone will give me more time for the flower garden.

Just like to mention also, there I am trying more and more to have a sustainable garden, with environmental conscious growing techniques, I decided, next year I will be adding some chickens to my garden. I am allowed to have a few, no roosters are allowed, which somewhat prevents me in growing my own flock, but I am all excited about it. So some of my time this year will be spent in planning a nice chicken coop and run and figuring this all out.

I thought about having chickens for a while, but then when I came across this website it gave me the push I needed
http://www.gardengirltv.com/
She is my new garden hero.
If the city would let me, I probably would also have a cow >lol< but can't have everything. Would have to move to the countryside for that. But I am to much of a city girl, to do that.

So, sun is out, only today. Gotta go, planting more vegetable seeds

Isabell