For those lucky enough to have room to grow their own backyard veggies, you’ll know it takes a little more effort than just finding a bit of extra space in the dirt.
If you want to grow your own veggies then careful planting, soil testing, watering, and maintenance are all essentials to cultivating a bountiful patch.
However, that critical care often overgrows into hours of hard work, which can leave a bad taste in the mouth of even the most ravenous gardening gurus—let alone those just starting out.
But having a green thumb and little time no longer has to serve up an empty plate or extra trip to woolies, thanks to the help of smart garden technology.
From app-controlled watering to AI-powered pest control, smart tech means growing the best backyard veggies has never been so high-tech or low-effort.
So consider planting some of these backyard smart tools with your veggies to help grow an abundance of high-quality greens ahead of summer.
Soil testers
Even if you’re growing your first vegetable, you’ll likely know they require water, sunlight, and an ample soil environment.
Soil sensors help monitor the temperature and moisture of your veggie patch to ensure it remains optimal for growing your future food.
This smart garden tech allows garden lovers to monitor these metrics in real-time before transferring the data to an app on their smartphone, tablet, or computer.
High-end models can even test for chemicals and nutrients while making soil adjustment suggestions or linking to other smart tech tools which will make changes for you –such as an irrigation system.
Smart compost monitors
Adding high-quality compost improves soil structure and health through the organic matter it provides.
Think of it as your budding veggies’ favourite food – essential nutrients capable of seeing seeds make the surface.
But not all composts are created equal, and outdated and expired organic matter can even damage your veggies instead.
That’s why investing in a compost monitor can help even the most diligent garden gurus avoid becoming complicit in composting kill-offs.
These smart tools use a probe to measure the levels of essential chemical elements in the compost and deliver up-to-date statistics to the user’s various devices.
The monitor will track and provide helpful recommendations based on its findings, such as adjusting the moisture levels or adding specific materials to help boost the nutritional value.
This allows you to adjust the compost as and when needed to help provide the best nutrition before placing it on your veggies.
Robotic-weeders
One of the worst parts of having a vegetable patch is all those hours spent on your hands and knees looking for and pulling out weeds.
But thanks to smart technology, home-grown veggie farmers can now go back to cutting their personally cultivated cucumbers in the kitchen while a robotic weeder does the rest.
These four-wheel-drive backyards Roombas scour the soil for any emerging weeds that could work their way out to your delicious veggies, wreaking havoc on future dinner plans.
Using either inbuilt weed whackers or lasers to hunt down baby weeds before they grow out of control.
They use sensors and an all-direction drive system to navigate the backyard and avoid touching any plants you don’t want.
These smart tech assassins use an inbuilt app to adjust and control settings, allowing users to set regular schedules or change operation paths.
