Hacking the Perfect Garden with Embeddable Technology

I just pledged $39 on Kickstarter towards the new Smart Herb Garden by Click & Grow. The technology is well-suited to indoor use. It centers around a special nanotech engineered soil, a computer-controlled watering system and a natural-light spectrum LED lighting system all in an attractive plastic case.

Of course applying technology to gardening is hardly new, however as the artisanal hardware trends continue, we predict more and more home gardeners will be hacking their gardens over the coming years.

Instructables has a project called “Growduino” that monitors and controllers watering and supplements natural sunlight with artificial light to ensure plants get the optimal total hours per day of light.

Gardenbot is an open-source modular system design for monitoring conditions such as temperature, moisture and light and for controlling values for watering plants. The project looks dormant now, but the plans are well-documented and there are a ton of useful links on the site (here).

If nothing else, you could continue to garden by hand and use the tech for fun things. Such as this Raspberry Pi controlled home garden train: