One of the most exciting developments recently, at least for me as a geek, is the development of new technologies for home gardeners. Until now only large greenhouse operations had access to remote sensing technologies to keep tabs on conditions in growing areas, but now we are seeing these technologies be adapted for home use. From applications for smartphones to weatherproof cameras, there are many ways to monitor and care for your garden digitally.
There are many great applications out there for smartphone users. One of my favorites is
Bugs & Insects (iTunes link). It has an extensive database of common garden pests along with many other creepy crawlies. However, if you have a smartphone, make sure you've downloaded
MS Tag before your next trip to Bob's Market. This handy application lets you scan Tags that look a bit like colorful barcodes. For example, you can scan a Tag for a plant and instantly be directed to the page in our plant directory for that plant. Then it is as simple as bookmarking it in your mobile browser for later reference.
If you're not a smartphone user there are still plenty of other technologies out there. One web-based tool that we are unable to live without here at Bob's is online weather services. Each of our greenhouses is equipped with its own weather station that monitors outdoor temperature, wind speed and direction, humidity, rain, and even ambient lighting. However, those sensors just monitor weather in the immediate area to adjust environmental conditions within the greenhouse. For long-term forecasting and planning we rely on services like
AccuWeather.com's Premium weather forecasting package. It gives you all the tools you need to forecast and plan like the pros.
Inside the greenhouse we also have devices that monitor things like soil temperature, moisture, and a plethora of other variables to ensure we have optimum growing condition for our seedlings. At our stores we offer devices similar to some of these tools. Although they don't plug into a computer like ours, we do offer soil moisture meters and other devices for the home gardener.
We even have cameras for sale that allow you to spy on your plants! The
PlantCam is a time-lapse camera that can be placed in your garden to generate amazing videos. It works by taking digital pictures at set time intervals and later stitches them together into a video to show, for example, weeks of growth, in a matter of a few minutes.
Gardening technology is a quickly growing field, and there are new products coming out every day. If you're someone like me who loves to have the newest gadgets and a great garden, you can now combine your love of technology and phytology. Now if they only made a weeding robot!
1 ¼ Cup Sugar
