Beginning gardening, plus tech! The Edyn garden sensor
This summer our little porch garden contains 6 tomato plants, several varieties of herbs, and a ton of onions. We've done peppers, lettuce, and even cucumbers in the past, but this year we stuck to a smaller selection and just got more of them.
So when I got a chance to try out an Edyn Garden Sensor, I thought we could really learn something from watching data about our plants' health!
The Edyn Garden Sensor was born of a Kickstarter campaign in summer 2014. It's a solar-powered sensor that gathers and analyzes data about light, humidity, temperature, soil nutrition, and moisture around it and wirelessly connects to the Edyn cloud; checks the data with plant, soil science, and weather databases; and feeds the info to your iPhone. Fancy stuff!!
It's available on the Edyn website and at HomeDepot.com and select Home Depot stores.
The data from the sensor tells us the current environmental conditions of the plant in question (this one is Tomato) which is probably the most helpful part for us.
It also provides historical data about the plant's health over time. You also can track multiple sensors at once, so you can watch the health of a variety of plants in the same conditions. And the app has options for tons of different plants so you can learn about their growth stages, tailored to-do's, and how well they fit with your garden. (In future phases of the app, there will be a garden timeline with suggestions for when to harvest, plus ideas for plant groupings that go well together.)
We have definitely under- and over-watered plants before... as beginning gardeners it's sometimes hard to get into the routine of caring for our plants, especially when that routine changes a lot with the weather from April to October in Oregon. Sometimes the rain waters the plants for us; others we have to water twice a day!
Husband has enjoyed the tech + hands-on elements of the sensor and the garden is more his creation than mine. He has more gardening experience than I do and is more diligent about watering than I am!
So here's his review about the sensor!
- It's sturdy. The specs state how it's built for the elements, but it really does feel like it'll last through many seasons of use.
- It's easy to use. It was super fun and easy to set up and connect to a smart phone.
- It's not buggy. It consistently has worked and been accurate.
- It covers a lot. One sensor covers 250' of soil! We're using small containers, which is potentially not as useful since it can only cover one plant, but it's still helpful for the size and type of plant it's in. The downside is, if you have plants in differently sized pots or of different varieties, it's less helpful. The tool would be best used for a garden box or in-ground garden so it could cover a wider area. However, the plant with the sensor in it is by far doing the best of all our plants! (It's in the largest pot, in the sunniest spot, but the sensor has been helping us keep it healthy.)
I'm really excited to have this tool to help us track our garden's health, as we learn gardening skills and slowly add to our plant repertoire!
Follow along as Edyn grows (pun not intended) and #gardensmart!
Twitter: @EdynGarden
Instagram: @edyn_garden
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/edyngarden
Purchase on the Edyn website and at HomeDepot.com and select Home Depot stores.
Thanks to Edyn for sending me the sensor and sponsoring this post!
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