Gardening Gadget Deal of the Day
15.6 years ago cheap, EasyBloom
Want a EasyBloom but $59.95 is a little out of your price range? Well good news, right now it is on sale for $20 off so you can have this little gardening gadget for the low price of only $39.95 with free shipping through Amazon.com. I have no idea how long it will stay at this price so if you were thinking about picking one of these up, now is the time.
If you have no idea what I am talking about, check out my full review of the EasyBloom Plant Sensor.
Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, vegetables
EasyBloom plant sensor review
15.8 years ago computer, EasyBloom, electronics, gadget, garden planning, product review
I will admit, I have a weakness for electronic gadgets, when I got wind of the EasyBloom I just had to try it out. The EasyBloom plant sensor is a device with built-in sensors to measure light intensity, humidity, temperature, and moisture content in your soil. It has three basic modes: Recommend, Monitor, and Water.
With the Recommend setting you place the EasyBloom into a location you want to grow something, let it sit there for at least 24 hours, plug it into your computer, and it will provide a detailed analysis of your planting area and provide a list of plants that would thrive in that location.
The Monitor setting allows you to diagnose problems with a particular plant. You first define the type of plant you want to monitor, turn on the device and place it next to the not so healthy plant, water, return 24 hours later, and plug it again into your computer. It will use the data stored in the sensors to give you a diagnosis to what the plant’s ailment might be.. Of course, this will not diagnose various pest or disease issue but can let you know if you have planted a little too early, in the wrong location, or are not watering enough (or too much) based on your soil structure.
Finally it has the water setting which the name should imply, will notify you when you need to water your plants.
To test this thing out I had three locations in mind to take measurements, each of which would provide a huge diversity of readings.
First, I put the EasyBloom in my grow box in the Recommend mode. I have complete control over the temperature and lighting I definitely could confirm the devices accuracy and I expected to see decent diversity of plants recommended. After placing the device in my grow box for almost 24 hours (see missing results below)
Overall the readings were nearly exactly what I expected though I was hoping to get a full sun rating, guess I may need to add an extra bulb to the box. Even with my conditions it did recommend 176 plants that I could grow inside it to maturity, though I am going to demand a rematch after adding a little more light
Second, I brought the sensor and set it up next to my office window. Currently I am growing Lemon Verbena I transplanted from my garden. I wasn’t concerned about moisture content so for this reading I didn’t include the moisture sensor and here were the results that were returned.
After this result I felt a little better about my grow box since it at least it was beating of an eastern facing window sill. With this result the program recommended 92 shade loving plants with Lemon Verbena not being one of them, though I have been providing some supplemental light to the plants.
Finally, I used the EasyBloom on my southern facing fence line plot (where I normally grow my cucumbers and tomatoes) This is where I wondered of the usefulness of EasyBloom to actually give good information about planning a garden in the offseason. Though I can not grow tomatoes outside right now due to cold, would it still let me know that it was still possible. Well here are the readings:
When I put the sensor outside it was raining pretty hard so passed the “weather proof” test. Though it did clear up the next day which is reflected in the “Full Sun” light reading. This was the obvious winner with 3458 plants recommended with the over 5000 in their database.
In conclusion, I will be the first to admit that the EasyBloom would not be on the necessity list for gardening tools, but for a beginning gardener it could provide some valuable incites to help your first few years be much more successful. For nerds/geeks like me it is a pretty cool toy, that I will be sure to be using in testing new lighting and grow box designs in the future.
Tags: cheap, growbox, led, outdoor plants, tomato plants, vegetables
