High-Tech Gardening

            In the future, trees and plants will send us emails to say they need watering or fertilizing.

            Sound far-fetched? That's one prediction made by futurist Lowell Catlett, an administrator in the college of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at New Mexico State University.

            As implausible as that may sound, there are all sorts of high-tech devices available to home gardeners that come close to Catlett's vision of plants notifying you when they need attention. Other digital tools are excellent for record-keeping, and some are just pure fun.

            Smith Mountain Lake gardeners can contemplate these gadgets, all of which provide an exhilarating "gee whiz" factor, while cuddled up inside during the winter months.

Automated Gardening

            There's not yet a machine that will weed your garden for you, but automatic timers have transformed many garden tasks. Attach a timer to a drip irrigation or sprinkler system, and let the garden water itself. If you're going away for more than a day or two and the containers aren't already watered by drip irrigation, cluster them together, set up a portable sprinkler so it sprays into all the containers, and set it on a timer to water daily.

            Another great timer application is for garden lights. Hook up a timer to the light system and set it so they turn on and off when desired. Don't forget to adjust the time as the daylight hours shift throughout the year. 

            Those who enjoy extending their gardening season often utilize a cold frame, a bottomless, boxlike structure used to protect plants from cold-weather elements. Managing a cold frame used to be a labor-intensive activity because someone needed to be monitoring its internal temperature all the time. On sunny days, even when the outside air temperature is low, it can get hot enough under the frame's glass to frizzle the plants; the lid needs to be raised to allow the hot air to escape. When the sun disappears on cold days, the lid needs to be closed.

            Today, a cold frame can almost run itself with a non-electrical device involving cylinders filled with a fluid that expands as it heats up. The expansion forces up an arm that lifts the cold frame lid. When the temperature drops, the liquid contracts, lowering the roof. Check these devices out at mastergardening.com/too-1023.html.

Garden Journals for the 21st Century

            Keeping a garden journal where you record the names of your plants and data such as bloom times, disease problems, rainfall, fertilizing schedule and so forth is an important way to keep track of your garden. Today, instead of a notebook, use your computer. You can download photos of your plants either from the internet or from your own digital camera and create charts and graphs of data. Information can be moved around and copied with ease so you can reorganize your garden or your journal system easily. 

            Your digital camera also is an invaluable garden tool. Daffodil maven Lina Burton uses hers to keep a record of where she planted her bulbs.

            "I photograph my beds after I've planted them," she said. "Then I print the photographs out in black and white on plain 8½-by-11-inch paper and write the name of each cultivar directly on the paper. That way, if/when deer run through the garden with my collie in hot  pursuit and labels are pulled out, I still know where everything is."

Time Lapse Photography:

Watch Your Garden Grow

            Under the "gee whiz" category falls the Timelapse PlantCam (wingscapes.com). This completely weatherproof, digital camera takes photos or videos at set time intervals. It then automatically stitches together the still photos to create a seamless movie, eliminating the need for external software. You can, for example, watch a month of plant growth in 30 seconds. 

            At four megapixels, the images are clear, and you have a choice of low, medium or high resolution images depending on your preferred quality and how much memory you want to use (there are 16 megabytes available).  The focal range is from 11 inches to infinity, making it possible to capture the details of a seedling emerging from the soil or a flower unfurling on a distant magnolia tree. Four AA batteries keep the camera running for about 8 weeks.

            View the results on your computer by downloading the high-resolution images via a USB port, or store the images in the memory card and transfer the images from there. And if there's one image that is particularly compelling, you can save it as an individual photograph.

Metering and Monitoring

            There are meters and sensors available to gardeners designed to measure and log a diverse array of data, including soil pH, soil moisture, light conditions, soil and air temperatures, and air humidity.

            Soil pH gives you a good indication of what plants will do well in any particular soil.  Temperature data is indispensable if you are mapping GDDs (grower degree days) in your garden. Why should you care? Because, with that information, you can predict the onset of disease problems, outbreaks of insects and the germination of weeds, thus allowing you to minimize the use of any pesticide by targeting applications to exactly when they are needed.

            The better temperature, moisture and light loggers collect data over a period of days and then connect to your computer where the information is downloaded and transformed into helpful graphs. Check out Web sites such as microdaq.com and planetnatural.com for a variety of products in different price ranges.

            A new company called EasyBloom has created a plant sensor that functions in three modes: Recommend Mode that collects sunlight, temperature, humidity, and soil drainage data and makes recommendations for suitable plants based on the findings; the Monitor Mode that keeps track of the growing conditions for a specific plant; and the Water Mode that sets the probe chirping if your plant needs to be watered.  Once you have gathered the data, you plug the device into the USB port of an internet-connected computer that has been registered with the company, and the results are revealed immediately in the form of graphs, charts and lists. Find out more at easybloom.com.