Another way for your plants to talk to you
15.9 years ago electronics, water
If the Botanicalls DIY Plant Twitter Kit is out of your technical expertise (or just too ashamed to have your plants tell on you) There is another product out there called Thirsty Light which you place in your plants and when the light blinks when you have neglected your watering duties. At only $10 this is not a bad investment for gardening nerds like me. You also have the option of pulling it out and checking the moisture in all of your plants to see who else you have neglected.
Tags: cheap, led, outdoor plants, vegetables
Are Poinsettias poisonous?
16 years ago Uncategorized
Sorry this one is busted, if you really want to you can eat a Poinsettia this Christmas though I have heard it tastes really bad and may give you a stomachache. Apparently this myth started over 100 years ago when sadly a child was found dead next to a Poinsettia plant and was a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time for the plant and it got the rap. If you still are not convinced you can check out the National Capital Poison Center’s site.
Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, vegetables
Create your own PC moisture sensor via PS2/Gamepad Controller
16 years ago electronics, water
Yet another component for “Project Everbearing” where I need the ability to monitor the moisture level of my soil. There are a couple options on how to do this; the classic method is to take two galvanized nails at a fixed distance apart in the soil. If you run electricity through one of the nails, some of the electricity will pass through the other nail depending on the amount of moisture, in much the same way as a variable resistor works. If the soil is completely dry it will have no conductivity (infinite resistance) since low voltage electricity does not pass through dry soil, as water is added the resistance is decreased and with completely drenched soil almost having complete conductivity.
Unfortunately, I did not have any galvanized nails and with our current snow storm I wasn’t going to venture out to the local Home Depot. I did fortunately have something even better, a handheld soil moisture sensor, which I bought when I started gardening before I learned I can see if I need to water by putting my finger in the soil.
With a little manhandling I got the cover off the back and realized that this tool works with the same principle as the galvanized nails with just two wires with provide variable resistance depending on the water content.
[And I thought my soldering was bad]
Now all that is needed was to solder these wires to a couple open points on my PS2 Controller which I am already using as a cheap temperature sensor The great thing about this implementation is the “resistor” has a broad range from no conductivity to nearly zero. Which is great since it gives a very accurate representation of the soil’s water saturation. For the calibration I was a little lazier this time and only took two points “Dry” and “Really Wet” With these measurements I then calculated the water saturation percentage. So now I can see my plants are at a 43% water saturation level, which I have no idea what exactly that means, but I do know I don’t need to water for a few more days.
One warning though since electrical conductivity can be affected by application of fertilizer (especially synthetic fertilizer which may contain sodium) and temperature so accuracy may be around 70-85% but for higher accuracy there are other expensive ($500) alternatives out there but I can live with this for my application.
Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, vegetables
Plants reveal your gardening shortcomings through Twitter
16 years ago electronics, water
Botanicalls DIY Plant Twitter Kit is an electronic device you insert into your houseplants and by giving them access to the Internet via Ethernet jack, they kindly praise you when water them and scold you when you are slacking via Twitter for all the world to see. At $99 per unit and require assembly (soldering) might be more cost effective to just let your plants die or at least get watering back into your winter routine. Though I imagine with a PS2 Controller, handful of galvanized nails, some wire, and a little coding someone could put together a cheaper solution. Guess who grew up watching every episode of MacGyver, this sounds like possibly one more project to add to my long list…
Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, vegetables
Broto Domestic Greenhouse grows plants through aeroponics
16 years ago aeroponics, hydroponics, indoor growbox
If you want something that is a little more aesthetically pleasing than the $20 PC Grow box and don’t have the counter space for an AeroGarden then the Broto Domestic Greenhouse might be the right option for you. Information such as price and if it will actually be commercially available seem to be missing, but seems to be a completely self contained aeroponics solution and given the use of LEDs for lighting I would imagine it would be a fairly low power consumer.
Tags: cheap, growbox, led, outdoor plants, vegetables
Propagating peppermint and lemon verbena – UPDATE
16 years ago lemon verbena, peppermint
As you can see from the picture, my peppermint and lemon verbena propagation has come a long quite well. I did have a little aphid infestation on the peppermint plant which I attempted to take care of with manual pinching, but eventually I gave up and chopped off the top off the plant. I then followed up with a hefty dose of insecticidal soap to the soil and the remaining stem. I would have preferred an even more natural method such as ladybugs but sure my officemates would prefer I didn’t.
The lemon verbena did pretty well on its own with one exception I think I mistakenly broke or cut the top off the plant so there was no vertical growth and just crazy shoots horizontally so I cut most of these off and replanted to 3 new starts which have taken off as well as their parent.
Tags: cheap, outdoor plants, pepper plants, peppermint plant, vegetables
