Round one of our radishes came to an end a little earlier than expected. Early last week the radish sprouts began wilting slightly. By the end of the week over half we're wilting badly or dead. It's a learning experience and not a terrible loss because we expected troubles with at least our first setup.
We have time for two more rounds of radishes to get it right. A new batch will be going in this weekend. This time we have done our watering research. Now we are passing on the information we've found so others don't have to make the same mistakes!
Watering 101:
Indoor plants don't need to we watered as often as outdoor plants, and definitely shouldn't be watered daily - the mistake we made. Most online resources recommend watering plants when the top 1 to 2 inches of top soil are dry to the touch. We'll be handling this with a moisture sensor.
When it is time to water the plants, give the roots a thorough dousing. A light watering may not dissolve enough nutrients in the soil. Thorough watering insures that the time the roots spend in water is well used. One resource we read recommends watering until water comes out of the bottom of the pot. We will be tuning our watering system to stop short of this point.
After watering is done, the roots need to breath again. Plants need oxygen from tiny air gaps in the soil. Oxygen is used to metabolize the freshly absorbed nutrients. The water is important too, it keeps the plant rigid and lets the plant "sweat" on hot days to stay cool.
All of this information is explained more accurately and with much more detail at The Garden of Eaden.
Stay tuned we'll have a post detailing our most recent setup and more pictures will be uploaded to our photostream!
Our friend from Italy
The Arduino has been around for a while now, and it has proven itself as a great prototyping tool. We needed an easy-to-use microcontroller in the garden to handle some tasks like watering. Programming the Arduino isn't quite painless, but the free IDE avialible from the Arduino website is easy to use and comes with handy example code. Which is good because some of our team members are new to microcontroller programming. The best part though is the community. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of projects with sample code available online. All together, the Arduino Duemilanove (Italian for 2009) is a no-brainer for us.
learn more about the Ardunio here
Labels:
Arduino Duemilanove
Seeds, Water and lots of Sunshine
Seeds:
Where we work, we are exposed to cool robots and electronic equipment galore. Many of the things we work on are really interesting, but don't do much to make the world a better place. The future of the planet is very important (We think that's pretty much agreed upon...), and we think that more energy should be directed towards a better future.
After a bit of brainstorming, we decided improving how the world gets its food is a good place to start. There are a lot of people who could benefit from cheaper automation of their food. There is quite a bit of research into automating large farms and groves, but not many people are focusing on the garden or acreage. This small scale of automation intrigues us. We believe there is potential to free up the world's food supplies with cheap small-scale automation. For the past few months we've slowly taken this idea and shaped it into something obtainable by a couple of college students, but classwork kept our seed dormant until...
The Water!:
Late September, at a job fair, we learned about Digi's Wireless Design Contest. In short, we compete by using one of Digi's new starter kits to design and develop a wireless application that saves water, electricity and/or gas. This is wonderful because our design can save on all three!
We've been busy bees for the past week reading, researching and designing. There is a lot to know about plant growth, water pumps, microcontrollers, etc. Enough research is done now, and all the parts for our first prototype are on their way! We'll be putting them all together very soon and growing radishes (yum!) with the first prototype of the robotic gardener. What we need now is a bit of...
Sunshine:
That's where you come in! We'd love to know what you think of our project, gardening, electronics... anything really! Let your friends know about this project too. We've got some long winter months in front of us, so we need all the sunshine and support we can get!
Where we work, we are exposed to cool robots and electronic equipment galore. Many of the things we work on are really interesting, but don't do much to make the world a better place. The future of the planet is very important (We think that's pretty much agreed upon...), and we think that more energy should be directed towards a better future.
After a bit of brainstorming, we decided improving how the world gets its food is a good place to start. There are a lot of people who could benefit from cheaper automation of their food. There is quite a bit of research into automating large farms and groves, but not many people are focusing on the garden or acreage. This small scale of automation intrigues us. We believe there is potential to free up the world's food supplies with cheap small-scale automation. For the past few months we've slowly taken this idea and shaped it into something obtainable by a couple of college students, but classwork kept our seed dormant until...
The Water!:
Late September, at a job fair, we learned about Digi's Wireless Design Contest. In short, we compete by using one of Digi's new starter kits to design and develop a wireless application that saves water, electricity and/or gas. This is wonderful because our design can save on all three!
We've been busy bees for the past week reading, researching and designing. There is a lot to know about plant growth, water pumps, microcontrollers, etc. Enough research is done now, and all the parts for our first prototype are on their way! We'll be putting them all together very soon and growing radishes (yum!) with the first prototype of the robotic gardener. What we need now is a bit of...
Sunshine:
That's where you come in! We'd love to know what you think of our project, gardening, electronics... anything really! Let your friends know about this project too. We've got some long winter months in front of us, so we need all the sunshine and support we can get!
Labels:
Agriculture,
Automation,
Conservation,
Contest,
Digi,
Garden,
Gardening,
Green,
Radishes,
Robot,
Robotics,
Wireless
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