what you can do….and how.
1 – Fill out your profile. Click on the avatar in the upper left hand corner and edit your profile filling in the requested info to the degree you feel comfortable. Your profile is user searchable and will allow other gardeners with similar interests or in your USDA climate zone or geographically near you to find you and connect. It’s all about the power of shared knowledge and resources. The more you fill out, the easier it is to connect and share.
2 –Create an online Garden Journal by choosing the Journals option. You can share as many posts as you wish in your journal and through the “All/Mine/Friends” tab you can view all other journal posts made public, just your own or just those from gardeners that friend you.
Post daily, weekly bi-weekly, ever how often you wish to post. You can record musings, make notes about ideas, record dates, set tasks, embed photos. You can also view and search others’ journal entries that they have elected to share.
You can print out your journal posts and keep a hard copy in a binder if you wish or just access it online or send them to your email address via PDF. It’s super easy. Click Journals, click add post and the text box is right there. No drop down menus or annoying icons. You, the journal and your thoughts…like it ought to be.
3 – Friend other gardeners. Friending allows you to choose specific people you want to share with more exclusively than the public or other logged in users. It also allows you to private chat and write on each other’s walls and message boards.
4 – Join or create a group. The best gardening cooperation is at the local level or among gardeners with common interests or close proximity. Simply choose GROUPS and look for a garden group that is dedicated to your type of gardening and a garden group that is in your geographic proximity or a garden group that is in your USDA growing zone. You can join as many groups as you please. You can create special project groups as well. Every group has it’s own calendars, pages, message boards, ‘Garden Wall’.
5 – Create planting calendars. You can create your own planting calendar or contirbute to and share in the events from group calendars. Setting state or zone planting calendars that can be shared item by item with individual members helps users decide what they might want to grow ad what is feasible.
You can set reminders planting ranges and be notified by email or message board.
6 – Create your own webpages. You can create your own webpages for your own gardening interests and if you like share the address with others.
Make a seed swapping page, a garden road trip page, a page on a special project. You can allow others to edit and add to your pages or just let folks see them.
Just go to the MORE option and a dropdown menu will appear with PAGES as an option. Click on it and you will see other pages created by USERS. Click Add Page and it is just like writing a journal post. You can type, format and using EMBED CONTENT add photos or other files into the content. You can make the page private, public logged in users only or friends only.
7- Swap Crops…or seeds or gardening materials. You can arrange to swap crops or seeds or supplies multiple ways. You can go to the classified section called The Crop Swap Market and create an ad. You can join or create a local Crop Swapping Group or a Seed Swapping group or you can create a page with its own URL (address) to share on social media with items you wish to swap ad terms.
8 – Author and submit for publication garden related articles or fresh from the garden recipes. We will gladly publish your article or recipe with full social media links for sharing on the Blog section of our site at Homegardenbook.com. Become a published author. You will receive full credit and if your article or recipe is picked up by a commercial journal we do not reserve any rights or restrictions and you are welcome to publish elsewhere and if you prefer we will remove it.
9 – Search the entire user site for mention of crops, methods, materials, locations etc with our super simple search bar. The search function indexes all keywords in posts, pages, ads, groups, user profiles etc made public or for your logged in users or just friends.
10- View our video tutorials and FAQ on the WordPress blog help page. Some of the tutorials are step by step, some are more general in nature. If you want a specific tutorial or an online live tech session just email us and let us know.