The Gardening Guide

The Gardening Guide From Mother Earth News

Here’s a great app/game for both Apple and Android tablets. I recently began using this app during the summer and discovered I enjoyed the app as equally as harvesting my own crops. Instead of playing Farmville on Facebook, my wife and I decided to give it a try in our yard. Our lack of skills/knowledge to plant and care for plants was our lack of motivation. My wife and I are very competitive and she insisted she didn’t need an app to assist her. So we decided to make this into a game/experiment. I would use the app meanwhile she would go by fate. Given my “techy” background, I quickly found this incredible app called, The Gardening Guide.

The app guided me through the process and provided tips and information on a specific plant. It caught my attention immediately because of the title: Garden Guide. I wanted a one-stop app where I can inform myself how to plant and how to take care of our crops. The interface is easy and very informative which caught my attention. Meanwhile the app guided me through the process of planting my crops, soon became very relevant as I needed to read and follow instructions. 

Throughout the season, I began to feel very confident about my crops; they were looking much healthier than my wife’s. The app gave me confidence to read ahead on other plants and expand my crop. An interesting feature that included was the ability to take a picture with your tablet and write or record your voice about the progress of your seed. Seeing the progress and final harvest, definitely sets the mood for satisfaction. Incredibly, I now find my nieces interested in using this app to plant and experiment with their own vegetables at home. This is a great example how the ARCS model can catch your interest/attention to motivate you into learning something new.