Gardening Meets IOT

Gardening has to do with cultivating plants, this can either be as a hobby or, on a larger scale, to serve as a source of food and? supplements for individuals and their families. Gardening is beautiful, healthy and rewarding. Similar to a fan’s interest in sports (e.g football), gardening is for some an investment of time, emotion and resources. It can also be a serious business for countries like Korea where both the urban areas and suburbs do not have as much land or India that often faces problems with drought. More and more people in the world today are being connected via online platforms for people with gardening interest and this goes to show that it is a growing phenomenon.

?Challenges in Gardening?

When it comes to traditional gardening, finding the right combination of fertile soil, sunlight and water is necessary for any garden to thrive. While gardening can be engaging and rewarding, there are some common challenges that gardeners face in their daily toils with their gardens, these challenges can either serve as deterrents or lessons to learn from.?

Over watering and under watering

Watering is a gardening skill that takes a lot of practice to achieve. Watering too much or too little is a balance that can be a little difficult to attain. Outdoor gardens even more so because of direct access to rainfall. While the traditional solution would be to check gardening pots every two days during cool weather and daily during hot weather, having a smart garden would be much more effective in controlling water saturation.

Plant Spacing?

Not just novice gardeners but experienced gardeners struggle with spacing plants. Consideration for the effects fertilizer or a well nourished soil implies there might be increase in growth of the plant, but there are more things to put into consideration through the growth process of plant such as saturation, humidity and sunlight which will in the long run impact the size of the plant at full maturity.?

Pest invasion?

It can be discouraging for gardeners to put in so much efforts and resources for their plants only to find it ridden by pests. For new gardeners, it might be difficult for them to find a solution to these problems, however, if an IoT device were to run diagnostics, possible solutions can be provided for pest control.?

Identifying and treating diseases

Plant disease like powdery mildew, blossom end rot are caused by care Inconsistencies that can be mitigated against by leaning into?

IoT smart gardening.?

Other gardening problems are planting too early, compatibility of soil and plant, finding the right planting location for lighting and managing weeds before they take over. These problems can be properly handled by investing in smart gardening.?

The rewards of gardening can be eroded by these challenges, as such, this post will explore the potentials of smart indoor gardening activities and IoT technology.

Garden of Things

In big cities, problems arise from homegrown gardens pertaining to the maintenance of the garden and availability of the gardener. An IoT based approach to gardening using micro controllers that help users identify the parameters of their homegrown plants and gardens is therefore imperative.?

IoT enables connection and interaction of things on a daily basis, this involves automation processes in places that require little to no human intervention, these automation processes are activated with the use of RFID, sensors, actuators, microcontrollers etc. These automated processes can yield excellent results when effectively incorporated into gardening.?

There are alternatives to the traditional gardening in the form of IoT based vertical gardening. It has a short growth cycle, yields more while reducing consumption of water, fertilizer and space; it also saves labor cost.

This process involves growing plants in water with mineral nutrients solution supported by gravel or perlite. Only the roots of the plants are dipped into the solution. There are no adverse effects on the quality of crops, it in fact improves the quality of crops and allows easy gardening for regions with insufficient land or suffering drought. Saturation and pH levels are monitored and maintained using a microcontroller.?

A traditional oriented smart garden would typically consist of smart irrigation controllers which is powered on or off by the level of saturation, this saturation is measured by the garden sensor which helps gardeners to stay connected to their garden. The garden sensor tracks light, nutrition, moisture, humidity and temperature. It is Wi-Fi connected and sends notifications to your phone or designated device.?

Data collected can be analyzed to help the gardener better prepare and also help to mitigate against losses in the next planting season. IoT tools such as the device application and the micro controllers help to connect different sensors which collect the parameters of soil and transmit the information via Wi-Fi.?

Environmental conditions such as soil humidity and temperature are monitored by IoT devices and corresponding applications. Data collected will help keep the garden in good condition and this will aid optimal utilization of resources for maximum output.?

Conclusion

The role of technology is to ensure ease and effectiveness in all aspects of our lives. It is not just enough to dabble into things: results matter and the same is applicable to gardening.

Here at Nitro Network, we are currently working on an application and DIY kits which will aid data tracking for your effective gardening. Follow us on our social media pages and turn on post notifications to stay informed on the part Nitro is playing to effect changes in gardening with the development of IoT solutions.