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Gardening Under Lights

Wall's Corners

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Title: Gardening Under Lights
Author: Wall's Corners
Rating 5 of 5 Des:

Efficient grow light stands bring the sunshine indoors Grow lights are perfect for indoor seedstarting. You can also use them to grow li...

<h2 class="article-sub-head">Efficient grow <a href="http://ift.tt/20bGhLI" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="How to Build an RGB LED Flashlight"><strong>light</strong></a> stands bring the sunshine indoors</h2>
<div class="content-asset">
<div class="image-center"><a class="link" href="http://ift.tt/1qx4nEx" target="_blank"><img alt="SunLite Garden" src="http://ift.tt/20bGgan" /></a><a class="link" href="http://ift.tt/1GRzor3" target="_blank" title="Shop for grow lights">Grow lights</a> are perfect for indoor seedstarting. You can also use them to grow light-loving houseplants, such as orchids.</div>
<div class="image-right"><a class="quickview" href="http://ift.tt/20bGi1Y" target="_blank" title="Compact grow light"><img alt="Compact 2-Tier SunLite Garden" src="http://ift.tt/1qx4nEC" /></a>Grow lights, such as this <a class="quickview" href="http://ift.tt/20bGi1Y" target="_blank" title="Compact grow light">Compact 2-Tier SunLite Garden</a>, are attractive enough to have in the kitchen. Our <a href="http://ift.tt/20bGgar" target="_blank">Vermont-made</a> line of <a href="http://ift.tt/1qx4nEE" target="_blank">SunLite Gardens</a> includes both standard (4 feet wide) and compact (2 feet wide) models.</div>
<p><span class="dropcap">W</span>ITH a set of grow lights, you can grow many plants indoors, including houseplants, orchids and some fruit and vegetable crops. Grow lights are ideal for seed starting because they help ensure stocky, green seedlings. A wintertime harvest of herbs and salad greens can also be grown under lights. By learning how plants use <a href="http://ift.tt/20bGi20" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="Stream Realtime Data to Trigger Raspberry Pi LED Lights"><strong>light</strong></a> and about the fixture options, you can select an <a class="link" href="http://ift.tt/1GRzor3" target="_blank">indoor lighting system</a>that is right for the plants you want to grow.</p>
<h3>The Right Color</h3>
<p>Sunlight contains the complete spectrum of light including all colors of the rainbow: red through yellow to blue and violet. <a href="http://ift.tt/1qwJ8CW" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="Plants"><strong>Plants</strong></a> use the full spectrum for photosynthesis, although red and blue light seem to be most critical. Choose “full-spectrum” lights because they ensure that plants get the type of light they need.</p>
<h3>The Right Intensity</h3>
<p>The intensity of light that a plant receives is determined by the wattage of the bulb and by how close the plant is to the light source. Just as plants differ in their need for certain colors of light, they also differ in their need for light intensity. Typically, those plants that are native to tropical jungles or shady forests do not require as much light as plants that evolved in dry, sunny climates, such as the Mediterranean or southern Mexico.</p>
<h3>The Right Duration</h3>
<p>No matter what types of plants you are growing, you must give them a rest. When it’s dark, plants respirate, which is an important part of their growth process. The balance of rest time to active growth time affects many biological processes, including the growth rate, and the setting of buds and fruit.</p>
<div class="image-right"><img alt="Vegetable seedlings growing under full-spectrum lights" src="http://ift.tt/1qx4nEG" />Vegetable seedlings need 14-18 hours of light a day.</div>
<p>Botanists usually divide plants into three categories relating to their preferred day length: short-day, long-day or day-neutral.</p>
<p><strong>Short-day plants</strong>, such as chrysanthemums, kalanchoe, azaleas and begonias, will thrive on less than 12 hours of light per day. In fact, these plants must usually go through a series of even shorter days before they will set buds and flower.</p>
<p><strong>Long-day plants</strong> require at least 14 to 18 hours of light each day. Most seedlings for vegetables and garden flowers are long-day plants. When they don’t receive enough light they get pale and leggy.</p>
<p><strong>Day-neutral plants</strong>, including foliage plants, geraniums, coleus and African violets, are usually satisfied with 8 to 12 hours of light all year-round.</p>
<div class="inline-box">
<h3>“Can’t I just use shop lights?”</h3>
<p>Yes, but full-spectrum lights have more of the type of light plants need. Your plants will be healthier and more vigorous with abundant, full-spectrum light.</p>
</div>
<h3>Using Fluorescent Bulbs</h3>
<p>Fluorescents produce two to three times more light than incandescent bulbs for the same amount of energy. They are the most inexpensive lights for indoor gardening.</p>
<p>Full-spectrum fluorescent bulbs, such as our SunLite bulbs, produce a balance of cool and warm light that replicates the natural solar spectrum. These lights are excellent for seedlings as well as houseplants, culinary herbs and other plants. The bulbs in our <a class="link" href="http://ift.tt/1GRzor3" target="_blank">Grow Light Stands</a> are some of the best full-spectrum bulbs on the market, replicating 98 percent of the solar spectrum. The bulbs use less electricity and last significantly longer than standard fluorescent bulbs. If you’re looking for <a class="link" href="http://ift.tt/20bGi22" target="_blank">complete grow kits</a>, we invite you to check out the products at Green State Gardener, another great Vermont gardening company.</p>
<p>Most flowering houseplants, such as African violets and begonias, are happy being 10 to 12 inches away from a light source. Foliage plants, such as ivy or philodendron, can be placed as much as 36 inches away from a light source. But many flowering plants, such as <a href="http://ift.tt/1qx4mk4" target="_blank">orchids</a>, gardenias and citrus, as well as most vegetable plants, require a much higher light intensity to flower and produce fruit.</p>
</div>
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Gardening Under Lights

Efficient grow light stands bring the sunshine indoors Grow lights are perfect for indoor seedstarting. You can also use them to grow li...

Gardening Under Lights

Wall's Corners

Link Author

Title: Gardening Under Lights
Author: Wall's Corners
Rating 5 of 5 Des:

Efficient grow light stands bring the sunshine indoors Grow lights are perfect for indoor seedstarting. You can also use them to grow li...

Gardening Under Lights

Efficient grow light stands bring the sunshine indoors Grow lights are perfect for indoor seedstarting. You can also use them to grow li...

Build a Raspberry Pi Moisture Sensor to Monitor Your Plants

Wall's Corners

Link Author

Title: Build a Raspberry Pi Moisture Sensor to Monitor Your Plants
Author: Wall's Corners
Rating 5 of 5 Des:

Build a Raspberry Pi Moisture Sensor to Monitor Your Plants

Automatically watering your plants with sensors, a Pi and webhooks

Wall's Corners

Link Author

Title: Automatically watering your plants with sensors, a Pi and webhooks
Author: Wall's Corners
Rating 5 of 5 Des:

Monitoring is the first step to understanding and fixing almost all issues. As a hobby I have been growing my own chillies with varied succ...

<p><em>Monitoring is the first step to understanding and fixing almost all issues.</em> As a hobby I have been growing my own chillies with varied success; my issue has been remembering to water the poor things. So after countless disappointing harvests, I decided to monitor my chilli plants and automate their care as much as I could by using cheap, off the shelf components. This post will detail my experiments with electronics, APIs and the <a href="http://ift.tt/13W6Isy" target="_blank" title="Server Density monitoring tool">Server Density monitoring tool</a>.</p>
<h2>Chilli <a href="http://ift.tt/1q9AJ7J" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="Irrigation"><strong>Irrigation</strong></a> System</h2>
<p>My first step was to set up the technology behind the components, for this I needed a <a href="http://ift.tt/iRv29v" target="_blank" title="Visit the Raspberry Pi homepage">Raspberry Pi</a> and an <a href="http://arduino.cc/" target="_blank" title="Visit the Arduino website">Arduino board</a>. The Raspberry Pi to connect the <a href="http://ift.tt/1pCdnqV" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="Arduino"><strong>Arduino</strong></a> to my network, and the <a href="http://ift.tt/25oS3pH" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="Arduino"><strong>Arduino</strong></a> to add analog inputs to the setup (which the Pi is unable to do). Although there are <a href="http://ift.tt/PamYLx" target="_blank" title="Making Raspberry Pi analog">converters and hacks</a> to give the Pi an analog reading, none of them seemed 100% reliable and I had an Arduino Nano spare.</p>
<p>Server Density don’t currently have a packaged agent for the Raspberry Pi but as it’s Python, you can easily clone the source from <a href="http://ift.tt/1Jlp4ZZ" target="_blank" title="Github">Github</a> or download it from <a href="http://ift.tt/1S5tjyR" target="_blank" title="Agent">Server Density</a>.</p>
<p>Once I did that, it was time to have a look at the basic sensors I was able to attach to the <a href="http://ift.tt/1q9AJo0" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="Arduino board"><strong>Arduino board</strong></a>, that would help to prolong the life and improve the yield of my plants:</p>
<ul>
<li>Temperature – averaged from the humidity and pressure sensors</li>
<li>Humidity – detect water vapour level in the air</li>
<li>Moisture – two prong sensor embedded into the soil and into the water reservoir</li>
<li>Light – light dependent resistor</li>
<li>Pressure – barometric air pressure (not directly related to plant health but fun to graph)</li>
</ul>
<p>When I started I had little experience with electronics and Arduino boards, luckily there are a lot of very simple guides available for using each of the sensors – <a href="http://ift.tt/1S5tjyT" target="_blank" title="Simple guides for Arduino sensors">let me Google that for you</a>. I was able to mount the Arduino directly into the breadboard to make it easier to connect up the sensors. Below is a close up of the board:</p>
<p><img alt="Automatic Plant Watering System" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3917" height="auto" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" src="http://ift.tt/1q9AJo4" srcset="http://ift.tt/1S5tjyX 300w, http://ift.tt/1q9AJo6 404w, http://ift.tt/1S5tjyZ 1000w" width="100%" /></p>
<p><img alt="Nano Close Up" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-3907" height="auto" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="http://ift.tt/1q9AJo8" srcset="http://ift.tt/1S5tjz1 300w, http://ift.tt/1q9AIAx 1024w, http://ift.tt/1S5tlXI 266w" width="100%" /></p>
<p>The Arduino connects to the Raspberry Pi via USB and sends the data back over serial in a JSON string. The cable powers the board and provides a serial link to allow the data to come back from the sensors. A plugin then runs in the <a href="http://ift.tt/1o7SuCW" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="Server"><strong>Server</strong></a> Density agent which reads the serial device until a complete set of readings is received (or 20 seconds is exceeded) – then the PI’s WiFi dongle allows it report the data back to Server Density for<a href="http://ift.tt/1S5tjz5" target="_blank" title="Server Density Monitoring Graphs">graphing</a>.</p>
<p><img alt="Monitoring a Chilli Plant" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3918" height="auto" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" src="http://ift.tt/1q9AIAz" srcset="http://ift.tt/1S5tme0 300w, http://ift.tt/1q9AIAD 443w, http://ift.tt/1S5tjz8 1000w" width="100%" /></p>
<h2>Full setup:</h2>
<h3>Plants</h3>
<p><img alt="monitoring chilli plants" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3911" height="auto" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" src="http://ift.tt/1q9AJog" srcset="http://ift.tt/1S5tme6 313w, http://ift.tt/1q9AIR0 900w" width="100%" /></p>
<p>Once the basic monitoring was in place and working reliably I added a pump to <a href="http://ift.tt/1UDKUyD" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="How to automatically water your plants with the Raspberry Pi"><strong>automatically</strong></a> water my chilli plants. It would draw water from a reservoir, that holds roughly a litre of water. From this point, I wanted the following to happen:</p>
<ol>
<li>When the soil becomes too dry, the pump is triggered.</li>
<li>Once the water level is too low in the reservoir, I get an email alert from Server Density.</li>
<li>I fill the reservoir back up.</li>
</ol>
<p>So far this has worked very well despite some early issues with pump performance. The pump is cheap kids kit from Maplin as luckily it fitted the pipes I had.</p>
<h3>Seedbox</h3>
<p>I purchased some <a href="http://ift.tt/1caWF8K" target="_blank" title="Bhut Jolokia">bhut jolokia</a> peppers and removed the seeds to grow my own plants. With a few failed attempts with seeds already, I set out to monitor as much as possible. Using a basic incubator box I added light and temperature sensors inside and out, along with 2 moisture probes in the soil. I also added an LCD panel so I could view the internal settings at a glance.</p>
<h3>Basic Environment Monitor</h3>
<p>I decided to extend the monitoring to the basic environment my chillies were in. I had a spare temperature and light sensor which I hooked up to a Arduino Nano clone. With minimal code I was able to create a basic set of sensors connected to an old laptop. The laptop has the Server Density agent running and using a plugin reports the output back for graphing. The Nano I used is a Chinese clone from eBay of the <a href="http://ift.tt/sKuSdd" target="_blank" title="Nano">Arduino</a>. It needed the headers soldering and the bootloader to be installed, but at £4.50 instead of £20 (ish) for a genuine board, it was worth the effort.</p>
<p><img alt="Arduino board" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3912" height="auto" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" src="http://ift.tt/1q9AIR2" srcset="http://ift.tt/1S5tme8 300w, http://ift.tt/1SCTbfW 329w, http://ift.tt/1S5tmea 900w" width="100%" /></p>
<p>Once the headers were soldered on, I installed the bootloader using <a href="http://ift.tt/1q9AJEx" target="_blank" title="avrdude">this</a>. It didn’t work initially, but after dropping <code>-U flash:w:blink.hex"</code> from the command:</p>
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<div id="crayon-5706894a3cfbe306235200-1" class="crayon-line"><span class="crayon-v">avrdude</span> <span class="crayon-o">–</span><span class="crayon-i">c</span> <span class="crayon-v">arduino</span> <span class="crayon-o">–</span><span class="crayon-i">b</span> <span class="crayon-cn">57600</span> <span class="crayon-o">–</span><span class="crayon-v">P</span> <span class="crayon-o">/</span><span class="crayon-v">dev</span><span class="crayon-o">/</span><span class="crayon-v">tty</span><span class="crayon-sy">.</span><span class="crayon-v">usbserial</span><span class="crayon-o">–</span><span class="crayon-v">A501S641</span> <span class="crayon-o">–</span><span class="crayon-i">p</span> <span class="crayon-v">atmega328p</span> <span class="crayon-o">–</span><span class="crayon-v">vv</span></div>
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<p><em>(N.b. Connecting to the board required the latest <a href="http://ift.tt/Pkbed9" target="_blank" title="ftdi drivers">ftdi</a> drivers for my Mac.)</em></p>
<p><img alt="server density monitoring" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3913" height="auto" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" src="http://ift.tt/1q9AJEB" srcset="http://ift.tt/1S5tmec 300w, http://ift.tt/1q9AJED 451w, http://ift.tt/1S5tmee 900w" width="100%" /></p>
<p>PC with light and temperature sensors reporting to Server Density</p>
<p>Again, I started these fairly basic projects with no real background in electronics, and owe a great deal to some of the excellent tutorials available. All of the parts were bought from eBay mostly for less than £2.</p>
<h3>Light Dependent Resistor</h3>
<p>For light measuring I used a basic LDR connected to the analog input on the Nano. With help of <a href="http://ift.tt/1q9AJEF" target="_blank" title="Lux conversion">this post</a> I was able to convert the analog 0 to 1024 value into lux. It’s an approximate measurement but close enough for this project.</p>
<h3>Pressure Sensor BMP085</h3>
<p>The BMP085 is a great little board that contains a pressure sensor and a temperature sensor. It must be connected to the analog pins 4 an 5 on the Nano to work correctly. Adafruit have a great <a href="http://ift.tt/17bYlJ7" target="_blank" title="BMP085">tutorial</a> for setting it up, again a simple case of hooking up power and the signal connections. Using the pressure reading and the temperature it’s possible to calculate your current altitude with your current sea level pressure but that was a bit beyond what I needed.</p>
<h3>Soil Moisture Hygrometer</h3>
<p>I used a basic <a href="http://ift.tt/1q9AIRg" target="_blank" title="Hygrometer">sensor</a>, a simple two pronged device that is pushed into soil. This model has an LED on it as well that is either red for dry or green for moist. You can use it either analog or digital mode. I used analog and connected directly to the analog port on the Nano.</p>
<h3>Humidity  DHT22</h3>
<p>This gives the percentage of water in the air using this <a href="http://ift.tt/1dtFDoP" target="_blank" title="DHTLib">guide</a>. It also has a temperate sensor which I average with the temperature from the BMP085.</p>
<h3>Sound LM393 Electret Microphone</h3>
<p>I am waiting for this to arrive. Noise was the last aspect of the environment I could think of to measure. I am hoping to adapt <a href="http://ift.tt/NGXqxi" target="_blank" title="Microphone">this</a> to read the decibel level and log it.</p>
<h3>Improvements</h3>
<p>The main limiting factor at the moment is the Arduino board needs to be connected to some thing with a network connection. Ideally I would like to build in some wireless protocol so the boards could be placed anywhere.<a href="http://ift.tt/HQ0IqL" target="_blank" title="Xbee">Xbee</a> looks like a valid solution but each transmitter costs twice as much as all the sensors and Nano board combined!</p>
<p>Monitoring soil PH is another sensor I am investigating. I have bought <a href="http://ift.tt/1q9ALMI" target="_blank" title="Soil PH">this</a>, a basic soil monitor and am hoping I can take it apart and log the soil PH values.</p>
<p>Thanks for reading. It’s been really fun experimenting with our software outside of the realms of infrastructure – it’s incredible how important and useful monitoring can be and how available the technology is to buy now. It’s also proven to be a rather addictive hobby – so there’s plans to keep on monitoring and I’ll keep you posted on how we get on! In the meantime, what are you monitoring with your server density account that isn’t a website or server?</p>
<h2>Resources</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://ift.tt/14ErcuO" target="_blank" title="Light Sensor">http://ift.tt/14ErcuO</a> Light Sensor</li>
<li><a href="http://ift.tt/1lGOfYO" target="_blank" title="Liquid Crystal Display">http://ift.tt/1lGOfYO</a> Liquid Crystal Display</li>
<li><a href="http://ift.tt/1S5tjPA" target="_blank" title="DHT 22">http://ift.tt/1S5tjPA</a> DHT 22</li>
<li><a href="http://ift.tt/1eBOlLE" target="_blank" title="BMP 085">http://ift.tt/1eBOlLE</a> BMP 085</li>
<li><a href="http://ift.tt/1S5tmuw" target="_blank" title="Water Pump">http://ift.tt/1S5tmuw</a> Water Pump</li>
</ul>
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Automatically watering your plants with sensors, a Pi and webhooks

Monitoring is the first step to understanding and fixing almost all issues. As a hobby I have been growing my own chillies with varied succ...

Build a Raspberry Pi Moisture Sensor to Monitor Your Plants

Wall's Corners

Link Author

Title: Build a Raspberry Pi Moisture Sensor to Monitor Your Plants
Author: Wall's Corners
Rating 5 of 5 Des:

Build a Raspberry Pi Moisture Sensor to Monitor Your Plants

Automatically watering your plants with sensors, a Pi and webhooks

Wall's Corners

Link Author

Title: Automatically watering your plants with sensors, a Pi and webhooks
Author: Wall's Corners
Rating 5 of 5 Des:

Monitoring is the first step to understanding and fixing almost all issues. As a hobby I have been growing my own chillies with varied succ...

<p><em>Monitoring is the first step to understanding and fixing almost all issues.</em> As a hobby I have been growing my own chillies with varied success; my issue has been remembering to water the poor things. So after countless disappointing harvests, I decided to monitor my chilli plants and automate their care as much as I could by using cheap, off the shelf components. This post will detail my experiments with electronics, APIs and the <a href="http://ift.tt/13W6Isy" target="_blank" title="Server Density monitoring tool">Server Density monitoring tool</a>.</p>
<h2>Chilli <a href="http://ift.tt/1q9AJ7J" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="Irrigation"><strong>Irrigation</strong></a> System</h2>
<p>My first step was to set up the technology behind the components, for this I needed a <a href="http://ift.tt/iRv29v" target="_blank" title="Visit the Raspberry Pi homepage">Raspberry Pi</a> and an <a href="http://arduino.cc/" target="_blank" title="Visit the Arduino website">Arduino board</a>. The Raspberry Pi to connect the <a href="http://ift.tt/25oS3pH" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="Arduino"><strong>Arduino</strong></a> to my network, and the <a href="http://ift.tt/1pCdnqV" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="Arduino"><strong>Arduino</strong></a> to add analog inputs to the setup (which the Pi is unable to do). Although there are <a href="http://ift.tt/PamYLx" target="_blank" title="Making Raspberry Pi analog">converters and hacks</a> to give the Pi an analog reading, none of them seemed 100% reliable and I had an Arduino Nano spare.</p>
<p>Server Density don’t currently have a packaged agent for the Raspberry Pi but as it’s Python, you can easily clone the source from <a href="http://ift.tt/1Jlp4ZZ" target="_blank" title="Github">Github</a> or download it from <a href="http://ift.tt/1S5tjyR" target="_blank" title="Agent">Server Density</a>.</p>
<p>Once I did that, it was time to have a look at the basic sensors I was able to attach to the <a href="http://ift.tt/1q9AJo0" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="Arduino board"><strong>Arduino board</strong></a>, that would help to prolong the life and improve the yield of my plants:</p>
<ul>
<li>Temperature – averaged from the humidity and pressure sensors</li>
<li>Humidity – detect water vapour level in the air</li>
<li>Moisture – two prong sensor embedded into the soil and into the water reservoir</li>
<li>Light – light dependent resistor</li>
<li>Pressure – barometric air pressure (not directly related to plant health but fun to graph)</li>
</ul>
<p>When I started I had little experience with electronics and Arduino boards, luckily there are a lot of very simple guides available for using each of the sensors – <a href="http://ift.tt/1S5tjyT" target="_blank" title="Simple guides for Arduino sensors">let me Google that for you</a>. I was able to mount the Arduino directly into the breadboard to make it easier to connect up the sensors. Below is a close up of the board:</p>
<p><img alt="Automatic Plant Watering System" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3917" height="auto" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" src="http://ift.tt/1q9AJo4" srcset="http://ift.tt/1S5tjyX 300w, http://ift.tt/1q9AJo6 404w, http://ift.tt/1S5tjyZ 1000w" width="100%" /></p>
<p><img alt="Nano Close Up" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-3907" height="auto" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" src="http://ift.tt/1q9AJo8" srcset="http://ift.tt/1S5tjz1 300w, http://ift.tt/1q9AIAx 1024w, http://ift.tt/1S5tlXI 266w" width="100%" /></p>
<p>The Arduino connects to the Raspberry Pi via USB and sends the data back over serial in a JSON string. The cable powers the board and provides a serial link to allow the data to come back from the sensors. A plugin then runs in the <a href="http://ift.tt/1o7SuCW" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="Server"><strong>Server</strong></a> Density agent which reads the serial device until a complete set of readings is received (or 20 seconds is exceeded) – then the PI’s WiFi dongle allows it report the data back to Server Density for<a href="http://ift.tt/1S5tjz5" target="_blank" title="Server Density Monitoring Graphs">graphing</a>.</p>
<p><img alt="Monitoring a Chilli Plant" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3918" height="auto" sizes="(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px" src="http://ift.tt/1q9AIAz" srcset="http://ift.tt/1S5tme0 300w, http://ift.tt/1q9AIAD 443w, http://ift.tt/1S5tjz8 1000w" width="100%" /></p>
<h2>Full setup:</h2>
<h3>Plants</h3>
<p><img alt="monitoring chilli plants" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3911" height="auto" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" src="http://ift.tt/1q9AJog" srcset="http://ift.tt/1S5tme6 313w, http://ift.tt/1q9AIR0 900w" width="100%" /></p>
<p>Once the basic monitoring was in place and working reliably I added a pump to <a href="http://ift.tt/1UDKUyD" itemprop="url" target="_bank" title="How to automatically water your plants with the Raspberry Pi"><strong>automatically</strong></a> water my chilli plants. It would draw water from a reservoir, that holds roughly a litre of water. From this point, I wanted the following to happen:</p>
<ol>
<li>When the soil becomes too dry, the pump is triggered.</li>
<li>Once the water level is too low in the reservoir, I get an email alert from Server Density.</li>
<li>I fill the reservoir back up.</li>
</ol>
<p>So far this has worked very well despite some early issues with pump performance. The pump is cheap kids kit from Maplin as luckily it fitted the pipes I had.</p>
<h3>Seedbox</h3>
<p>I purchased some <a href="http://ift.tt/1caWF8K" target="_blank" title="Bhut Jolokia">bhut jolokia</a> peppers and removed the seeds to grow my own plants. With a few failed attempts with seeds already, I set out to monitor as much as possible. Using a basic incubator box I added light and temperature sensors inside and out, along with 2 moisture probes in the soil. I also added an LCD panel so I could view the internal settings at a glance.</p>
<h3>Basic Environment Monitor</h3>
<p>I decided to extend the monitoring to the basic environment my chillies were in. I had a spare temperature and light sensor which I hooked up to a Arduino Nano clone. With minimal code I was able to create a basic set of sensors connected to an old laptop. The laptop has the Server Density agent running and using a plugin reports the output back for graphing. The Nano I used is a Chinese clone from eBay of the <a href="http://ift.tt/sKuSdd" target="_blank" title="Nano">Arduino</a>. It needed the headers soldering and the bootloader to be installed, but at £4.50 instead of £20 (ish) for a genuine board, it was worth the effort.</p>
<p><img alt="Arduino board" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3912" height="auto" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" src="http://ift.tt/1q9AIR2" srcset="http://ift.tt/1VbHJOq 300w, http://ift.tt/1SCTbfW 329w, http://ift.tt/1S5tmea 900w" width="100%" /></p>
<p>Once the headers were soldered on, I installed the bootloader using <a href="http://ift.tt/1q9AJEx" target="_blank" title="avrdude">this</a>. It didn’t work initially, but after dropping <code>-U flash:w:blink.hex"</code> from the command:</p>
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<div id="crayon-5706894a3cfbe306235200-1" class="crayon-line"><span class="crayon-v">avrdude</span> <span class="crayon-o">–</span><span class="crayon-i">c</span> <span class="crayon-v">arduino</span> <span class="crayon-o">–</span><span class="crayon-i">b</span> <span class="crayon-cn">57600</span> <span class="crayon-o">–</span><span class="crayon-v">P</span> <span class="crayon-o">/</span><span class="crayon-v">dev</span><span class="crayon-o">/</span><span class="crayon-v">tty</span><span class="crayon-sy">.</span><span class="crayon-v">usbserial</span><span class="crayon-o">–</span><span class="crayon-v">A501S641</span> <span class="crayon-o">–</span><span class="crayon-i">p</span> <span class="crayon-v">atmega328p</span> <span class="crayon-o">–</span><span class="crayon-v">vv</span></div>
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<p><em>(N.b. Connecting to the board required the latest <a href="http://ift.tt/Pkbed9" target="_blank" title="ftdi drivers">ftdi</a> drivers for my Mac.)</em></p>
<p><img alt="server density monitoring" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3913" height="auto" sizes="(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px" src="http://ift.tt/1q9AJEB" srcset="http://ift.tt/1S5tmec 300w, http://ift.tt/1q9AJED 451w, http://ift.tt/1S5tmee 900w" width="100%" /></p>
<p>PC with light and temperature sensors reporting to Server Density</p>
<p>Again, I started these fairly basic projects with no real background in electronics, and owe a great deal to some of the excellent tutorials available. All of the parts were bought from eBay mostly for less than £2.</p>
<h3>Light Dependent Resistor</h3>
<p>For light measuring I used a basic LDR connected to the analog input on the Nano. With help of <a href="http://ift.tt/1q9AJEF" target="_blank" title="Lux conversion">this post</a> I was able to convert the analog 0 to 1024 value into lux. It’s an approximate measurement but close enough for this project.</p>
<h3>Pressure Sensor BMP085</h3>
<p>The BMP085 is a great little board that contains a pressure sensor and a temperature sensor. It must be connected to the analog pins 4 an 5 on the Nano to work correctly. Adafruit have a great <a href="http://ift.tt/17bYlJ7" target="_blank" title="BMP085">tutorial</a> for setting it up, again a simple case of hooking up power and the signal connections. Using the pressure reading and the temperature it’s possible to calculate your current altitude with your current sea level pressure but that was a bit beyond what I needed.</p>
<h3>Soil Moisture Hygrometer</h3>
<p>I used a basic <a href="http://ift.tt/1q9AIRg" target="_blank" title="Hygrometer">sensor</a>, a simple two pronged device that is pushed into soil. This model has an LED on it as well that is either red for dry or green for moist. You can use it either analog or digital mode. I used analog and connected directly to the analog port on the Nano.</p>
<h3>Humidity  DHT22</h3>
<p>This gives the percentage of water in the air using this <a href="http://ift.tt/1dtFDoP" target="_blank" title="DHTLib">guide</a>. It also has a temperate sensor which I average with the temperature from the BMP085.</p>
<h3>Sound LM393 Electret Microphone</h3>
<p>I am waiting for this to arrive. Noise was the last aspect of the environment I could think of to measure. I am hoping to adapt <a href="http://ift.tt/NGXqxi" target="_blank" title="Microphone">this</a> to read the decibel level and log it.</p>
<h3>Improvements</h3>
<p>The main limiting factor at the moment is the Arduino board needs to be connected to some thing with a network connection. Ideally I would like to build in some wireless protocol so the boards could be placed anywhere.<a href="http://ift.tt/HQ0IqL" target="_blank" title="Xbee">Xbee</a> looks like a valid solution but each transmitter costs twice as much as all the sensors and Nano board combined!</p>
<p>Monitoring soil PH is another sensor I am investigating. I have bought <a href="http://ift.tt/1q9ALMI" target="_blank" title="Soil PH">this</a>, a basic soil monitor and am hoping I can take it apart and log the soil PH values.</p>
<p>Thanks for reading. It’s been really fun experimenting with our software outside of the realms of infrastructure – it’s incredible how important and useful monitoring can be and how available the technology is to buy now. It’s also proven to be a rather addictive hobby – so there’s plans to keep on monitoring and I’ll keep you posted on how we get on! In the meantime, what are you monitoring with your server density account that isn’t a website or server?</p>
<h2>Resources</h2>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://ift.tt/14ErcuO" target="_blank" title="Light Sensor">http://ift.tt/14ErcuO</a> Light Sensor</li>
<li><a href="http://ift.tt/1lGOfYO" target="_blank" title="Liquid Crystal Display">http://ift.tt/1lGOfYO</a> Liquid Crystal Display</li>
<li><a href="http://ift.tt/1S5tjPA" target="_blank" title="DHT 22">http://ift.tt/1S5tjPA</a> DHT 22</li>
<li><a href="http://ift.tt/1eBOlLE" target="_blank" title="BMP 085">http://ift.tt/1eBOlLE</a> BMP 085</li>
<li><a href="http://ift.tt/1S5tmuw" target="_blank" title="Water Pump">http://ift.tt/1S5tmuw</a> Water Pump</li>
</ul>
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Automatically watering your plants with sensors, a Pi and webhooks

Monitoring is the first step to understanding and fixing almost all issues. As a hobby I have been growing my own chillies with varied succ...

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