I was checking one of my favorite sites (yes, it was the National Garden Bureau ([http://www.ngb.org] again, because they had articles on seed starting) when I came upon a new app there for something. And I can’t even tell you what’s it’s for because I clicked right off the the whole site so fast that I didn’t have time to look.
Clearly, I have no trouble with web sites. I have no trouble with computers. I consume all my media electronically, I am embarrassed to admit. The Spoiler reads actual newspapers and I sit in the same room with him and read the same papers on my tablet. I much prefer reading on my Kindle to reading a paper book.
But, when it comes to gardening, I do not want to use apps, phones, meters, tablets, or anything like that. I want to go outside–or during the 6 months of the year when it’s too cold for that, to actually touch my house plants and their soil–with my hands. I don’t want a moisture meter telling me when to water, some light meter giving me foot candle readings or anything of the sort. I have eyes (albeit compromised ones) and hands and gardening is my escape from all the technology that I use in the rest of my life.
A survey conducted by Axiom Marketing in November 2020 said that gardeners 56+ (their categories were 18-28, 29-39, 40-55, and 56+) do not use gardening apps. Only 8% of the 56+ category used any apps at all. I am definitely not in that 8%.
And it’s not that I don’t think that apps aren’t useful. It’s more that I want time away from technology. For a long time, I didn’t even take my phone when I went outside. I didn’t want to hear it ring (perish the thought!) and I surely didn’t want to ever check email.
And while there might be useful functions–planners, graphs, etc.–that the phone can do–I have kept a paper garden journal for literally decades. It’s no hardship to write things down at the end of the day for me. It cements them into my brain. And the physical book is useful for storing garden receipts and notes about what I might need to buy for next year too.
So am I an old gardening lady? Maybe–and that’s fine. But for me, my garden is a place to decompress and unwind. And I am keeping it that way.
Gardendaze 
Leave those apps at the garden gate. Time to get ‘lost’ in the garden or that walk in the woods.
Yes, absolutely. I totally agree!
Karla
While in school, I noticed that those of us who actually enjoyed horticulture were very rare. Most of us were there with the expectation that we would either take over our parents’ business, or get a ‘good’ job with a big grower such as Monrovia. Those who wanted the ‘good’ jobs enjoyed bragging about ‘greening the Earth’, but did not actually ‘enjoy’ doing the work. To me, the ‘good’ jobs were like factory work. My colleague and I actually refer to the growers as ‘factory growers’. All the modern technology (for the 1980s) took some of the fun out of it. I use technology if necessary. but prefer to grow crops that do not need much of it. I use very little in my home garden. I live in a region where we do not need much of it. Much of the modern ‘information’ is misleading and inaccurate anyway. Heck, just yesterday, I simply looked up pictures of Arizona cypress, and found mostly pictures of deodar cedar, along with pictures of various other cedars and junipers and even pines!
Ack! What good is technology if it’s not even helpful?
One of my favorite things to do (which has nothing to do with gardening) is to just spend time on the beach watching the ocean, the waves and any wildlife. No technology involved.
Karla
We are so glad that NGB is your favorite! Thanks!
I have to admit that I probably don’t see 95% of the “add-ons” on any website I visit, because I’ve got a veritable Berlin Wall of script blockers, ad blockers, tracker blockers, etc on my browser. That said, I wouldn’t a gardening app either – and not only because I don’t regard my small smartphone as anything other than a talk-or-text device. My aging vision requires a BIG screen, lol. That said, I’d be lost without my personal garden databases, notes, digital photos, and so forth. But my daily/weekly garden journal is Lee Valley’s hardbound paper version. 😀
That’s exactly what I use–that Lee Valley paper version. I am on my 3rd copy of it. I find it invaluable! I think when I got the new one 2 years ago I posted about it, with photos of the old and new side by side.
I also have posted about it mid-year one year to show that I use it to “archive” garden receipts ( I staple them in on the date of purchase). So you can imagine at the end of 10 years what this thing looks like!
Let the people born with the phones in their hands use apps. If I am looking at those, I am missing what’s going on in the world.
Karla