Got a green thumb? You'll dig these digital gardening tools
With advancements in technology, caring for your little green patch is easier than ever.
Australians have always enjoyed escaping to their gardens for downtime, and with our current pace of life, these sanctuaries have become more important than ever.
The digital age has done a thing or two to for our grnormally used to interact with your mobile device screen, can be easily turned green thanks to the intervention of technology.
From planning to planting, there are many digital tools that can help you along the garden path.
Preparation for best results
A great way to introduce the digital world to your little green patch is to make use of an online garden planner.
Rainmaker and Veggie Guide apps.
There are tools that can help you plan your entire garden even before you plant a seed in the ground.
Pages like Garden Planner Online, Yates Virtual Garden and Growveg allow you to:
- Work out the design of your perfect garden by placing plants, garden beds, lawns and even furniture into a sketch of your yard.
- Learn how to get the most out of your fruit and vegetables and tend to your crops.
- Read about the when, how and what to plant according to your space, soil and location.
Maintaining your garden
Once you've planned out your ideal garden, the next step is figuring out the best way to care for it. There are many resources and tools available online to help with this.
A quick search for gardening brings up sites like Gardening Australia, Open Gardens Australia and Sustainable Gardening that offer tips and tricks from professionals and are aimed at helping everyone - from beginners to experienced gardeners.
If you're looking for advice on specific aspects of gardening, the online community is buzzing with activity. Green-thumbed bloggers are sharing their adventures, success stories, and advice. Check out some of the blogs below:
• Garden Amateur - is run by a resident of Sydney's inner west who shares his experiences tending to his small garden and kitchen.
• Chloe’s garden - follows the musings of a gardener who travels from one garden to another.
• Suburban Tomato - is run by a gardener who is documenting "the joys and the pitfalls" of growing vegetables and herbs to feed the family.
Gardening knowledge at the tip of your fingers
With no aspect of our lives untouched by the mobile revolution, gardening is no different.
Apps like Garden Planner and The Vegie Guide offer great tips including how to plant, when to plant and growing tips.
Gosprout is another app designed to help you tend for the garden. It sends customised information and notifications to your phone, including details on when to plant and details such as watering>
Devices in your garden
It is not just mobile devices that are making their way to the garden. Many other tech advances have started popping up alongside plants in gardens.
Devices like Greenbox use your smart device to control the way your garden is watered. Greenbox also takes into account local weather and conditions and adjusts your watering system to match.
Other devices, like Rainmachine, connect to your home Wi-Fi rather and adjust your watering timetable based on temperature and weather conditions and forecast.
Tools like Edyn are planted into your garden bed and monitor your soil for nutrition, moisture and temperature. It then checks this information against a database of plants and sends instructions directly to your smart phone on how to fix any problems that might exist.
The future of gardening
With more and more technology designed to help with gardening, the success of our future gardens might come down to the quality of our internet infrastructure, rather than our skill as a gardener.
Who knew that the internet would be key in helping turn your little patch of green into a lush, green and flowering Eden.